Finals testing begins next week for the Autonomous Wildfire Response Track of XPRIZE Wildfire, bringing some of the world’s most promising wildfire-fighting technologies to rural Alaska.
Over the coming days, finalist teams will deploy autonomous systems in rural Nenana, Alaska, just outside of Fairbanks, in partnership with the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Their challenge: rapidly detect, locate, and suppress wildfire ignitions without human intervention—demonstrating a future where destructive wildfires can be stopped before they spread beyond control.
The tests will evaluate each system’s speed, accuracy, autonomy, and suppression effectiveness under realistic field conditions. Finalist solutions integrate technologies including artificial intelligence, autonomous aircraft, advanced sensors, robotics, and novel suppression approaches.
The Autonomous Wildfire Response Track is one of two tracks within the $11 million XPRIZE Wildfire competition, which aims to revolutionize how humanity detects and combats destructive wildfires.
Testing for Track A, Space-Based Detection & Intelligence, concluded in New South Wales, Australia, in April.
Follow along as we share the latest developments from finals testing.
June 18, 2026 | 4:17 pm PST
Why Alaska? The Challenge Behind XPRIZE Wildfire Finals Testing
When lives depend on technology, it needs to be tested in rugged, real-world environments.
That’s why finalists in the XPRIZE Autonomous Wildfire Response Track were brought to Alaska’s interior.
The finals testing site is located near Nenana, Alaska, offering something increasingly difficult to find: a vast, open landscape where cutting-edge systems can be challenged at meaningful scale. The remote location allows teams to operate across a large competition area while minimizing many of the ground hazards that can come with testing closer to populated communities. Testing in this remote region allows us to demonstrate and evaluate these technologies for remediating technologies before moving into areas into the wildland-urban interface (WUI) which have higher human populations.
Testing this kind of innovation comes with real challenges, but Alaska provides the scale, conditions, and sparsely populated areas needed to push these systems closer to real-world readiness.
Alaska's boreal forests and natural fuels share characteristics with many other wildfire-prone regions around the globe. The landscape also bears visible reminders of past fire activity and the state also understands wildfire risk firsthand. In 2025 alone, Alaska experienced a wildfire season that burned an estimated 1.68 million acres. That’s roughly double the state's 10-year average. While many of those fires occurred in remote areas, they still created significant impacts across ecosystems and danger to communities.
During finals testing, teams must monitor a vast area, rapidly detect incipient fires, accurately locate fires, and autonomously deploy suppression systems all while avoiding false positives and operating safely in changing environmental conditions.
Alaska provides the scale necessary to evaluate whether these systems can perform under those demands.
The location also brings its own unique challenges. Teams must contend with unpredictable weather, long distances, rugged terrain, and abundant wildlife. These factors create additional layers of complexity that autonomous systems must overcome.The site's remoteness is difficult to appreciate until you experience it firsthand. Located near Nenana, about an hour southwest of Fairbanks, the testing area sits at the edge of Alaska's vast interior. The area is not far from the location made famous by Into the Wild, offering a glimpse of just how vast and undeveloped this part of Alaska remains.
Beyond the competition area, the land stretches for miles with little sign of development. The scale of the landscape is a reminder of both Alaska's natural beauty and the challenge of protecting remote areas from wildfire. When a fire starts in a place like this, detection, response time, and access can make all the difference.
In addition to the real-world testing environment, the decision to test in Alaska brought the competition to University of Alaska Fairbanks and ACUASI (the Alaska Center for Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration) test range. ACUASI’s decades of test expertise was essential and made these advanced tests possible.
Ultimately, Alaska wasn't chosen simply because it is remote. It was chosen because it offers the scale, conditions, and operational challenges necessary to answer a critical question: Can autonomous systems help stop wildfires at the incipient stage?
June 11, 2026 | 10:25 am PST
What to look for
Last week marked the beginning of the pre-deployment windows for teams participating in the XPRIZE Wildfire Autonomous Wildfire Response Track in Alaska.
Teams are currently arriving, unpacking their gear, surveying the testing site, and strategizing their deployment.
Official testing is set to commence on June 15.