Data Blanket focuses on drone-based, AI-driven firefighter asset

A group of Washington state startup executives is pooling the experience and knowledge of overlapping backgrounds to turn their Data Blanket creation into an effective and powerful tool for the firefighters increasingly called out to battle raging blazes blackening multiplying areas of the planet.

Bellevue-based Data Blanket is developing a system of coaxial drones and artificial intelligence-enhanced computing to provide firefighters with faster, better information needed to extinguish the kinds of infernos that have burned out of control for weeks in Canada and Greece this year. Backed by financiers that include Bill Gates, the company’s aim is to perfect a platform using swarms of automated UAVs to both spot and analyze fires that have broken out, and also broadcast data from surrounding areas to determine the best strategies for suppressing them.

Blanket Data uses coaxial drones made by Ascent Aerosystems to get to and above blazes both…