Understanding The Battlefield: How Aerial Intelligence Is Reshaping Wildfire Response - Interview with CEO Stephen Brookes

With more than two decades of operational experience in aerial wildfire reconnaissance, Stephen Brookes leads Airview Fire Recon (AFR) in delivering real-time aerial intelligence to fire agencies. 

For readers outside Australia — what exactly does AFR do?

AFR provides real-time aerial fire intelligence, often referred to as ISR — Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance. We specialize in collecting high-quality daylight and thermal aerial vision and geo-locational data from helicopters, delivering it directly to fire agencies as events unfold. At its core, our role is to give incident controllers and wildfire management staff a clear, accurate, and timely picture of what’s happening on the ground, enabling critical decisions and significantly improving response times.

Wildfires Are No Longer Local Problems — How Is Airview Fire Recon Rethinking Fire Prevention on a Global Scale?

At Airview Fire Recon, we’ve reached a clear conclusion: wildfires don’t respect borders, seasons, or traditional response models. Whether you’re operating in Australia’s bushland, California’s wildland–urban interface, or the increasingly fire-prone landscapes of Southern Europe, the problem is the same — fire is moving faster than our legacy systems were designed to handle.

Our focus has shifted upstream. Fire prevention today is about intelligence, not reaction. It’s about persistent awareness, predictive insight, and giving decision-makers time — time to act before a fire escalates. That philosophy underpins every technology we deploy globally.

What Role Does Advanced Aerial Sensor Technology Play in Modern Fire Prevention and mitigation?

Aerial intelligence is foundational. We operate state-of-the-art multi-axis stabilized gimbals paired with advanced sensor suites that combine ultra-long-range daylight zoom with seamless infrared imaging. This allows us to detect heat anomalies through smoke, haze, and terrain — day or night — without switching systems or losing situational context.

What’s critical is integration. The sensor doesn’t operate in isolation. Every visual and thermal feed is geo-referenced, stabilized, and streamed into our mapping and analytics pipeline in real time. That means what the aircraft sees is immediately actionable by crews on the ground and analysts in fire control centres, regardless of where they are in the world.

How Is Integrated Fire Mapping Changing the Way Agencies Understand Active Firegrounds?

Traditional fire maps are snapshots. Fires are not static. We’ve built systems that generate continuously updating fire perimeters, heat intensity layers, rate-of-spread vectors, and terrain interactions — all in real time.

Using aerial data fused with satellite inputs, weather models, and ground intelligence, we produce dynamic fire maps that evolve as the fire evolves. These maps feed directly into incident command systems, aircraft cockpits, and remote operations centres.

In practical terms, this means agencies in California can assess a fire’s behaviour minute-by-minute, while teams in Europe can monitor risk escalation days in advance — using the same platform.

Why Is 3D Real-Time Mapping a Game Changer for Fire Behaviour Analysis?

Two-dimensional maps only tell part of the story. Fire lives in three dimensions — it climbs terrain, crowns through canopies, and interacts with atmospheric layers.

We are developing advanced 3D real-time mapping capabilities designed to model fire as a dynamic, living system rather than a static perimeter. By combining terrain, fuel structure, wind interaction, and live fire movement into a continuously updating spatial environment, this technology is intended to provide deeper insight into how and why fires behave the way they do. 

How Is Artificial Intelligence Being Used to Predict Fires Before They Escalate?

AI is where prevention truly becomes proactive. These AI-driven prediction models are being designed to integrate historical fire data, live weather, fuel conditions, topography, and aerial intelligence to assess probability rather than simple spread. The objective is to enable earlier intervention, smarter resource allocation, and more proactive fire prevention across diverse environments in Australia, North America, and Europe.

These models don’t just forecast spread — they identify probability. Probability of ignition. Probability of rapid escalation. Probability of impact to infrastructure or communities.

What Does a Modern Fire Control Centre Look Like in the Airview Ecosystem?

It’s no longer a room full of radios and whiteboards. Our secure digital portals give fire control centres access to live aerial feeds, real-time maps, AI predictions, aircraft tracking, and operational dashboards — all in one environment.

Multiple agencies can collaborate simultaneously, regardless of geography. A fire commander in Victoria can be viewing the same data as an analyst in Los Angeles or a strategist in Southern France, in real time.

This shared operational picture is essential for large-scale incidents and international knowledge transfer.

How Does Live Streaming and In-Aircraft Technology Improve Operational Outcomes?

Every Airview aircraft functions as a flying data node. Live streaming from the aircraft allows decision-makers on the ground to see exactly what crews are seeing in the air, without delay.

Inside the helicopter, pilots and air attack supervisors use interactive displays that overlay fire intelligence, terrain, hazards, and tasking information directly into their workflow. This reduces cognitive load, improves safety margins, and increases mission effectiveness.

It’s about removing friction — between air and ground, data and action, insight and decision.

What Does the Future Hold for Airview Fire Recon and Global Fire Prevention?

The future is integrated, predictive, and collaborative. Our expansion across Australia, North America, and Europe is driven by a single goal: to standardise high-quality fire intelligence globally while respecting local operational realities.

As fires become more frequent and more complex, technology must work harder — quietly, reliably, and seamlessly in the background. At Airview Fire Recon, we’re not building tools for novelty. We’re building systems that give communities a fighting chance before fire becomes disaster.

Because true success isn’t what we capture from the air — it’s the landscapes, communities, and lives that never have to burn.

Stephen Brookes

CEO, Airview Fire Recon