Currently, there is a lack of unmanned aerial vehicles that are being used with the purpose of extinguishing fires. An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is an aircraft without a human pilot on board. Its flight can be controlled autonomously by computers in the vehicle, or by remote control under the direct command of a human. In the United States and the rest of the world, most of the UAVs in existence are being used for defense purposes.

Fires that occur in homes and non-residential buildings as well as fires in wild lands cause plenty of health issues; including death to humans and animals, in addition to great economic losses in structures, equipment and vegetation. Furthermore, the first response teams, such as firefighters, are exposing their lives to great risks in order to extinguish a fire.

In addition to those huge problems, there is another one that does not cause so many struggles, but it does have a negative effect when a fire occurs. One of the most popular ways to extinguish fires is to spray water in the area affected by the flames. The water can be delivered via hose using a pressurized fire hydrant, fire sprinkler system, pumped from water sources, such as lakes, rivers or tanker trucks, or dropped from aircrafts in the case of wild land fires. These techniques result effective in extinguishing the fire; however, the damages that they cause to large structures and its contents once the fire is extinguished, generally, are great. The main disadvantage of spraying water in the area of the fire is that water can damage the interior of the building. Especially in office buildings, where electronic equipment and important documents exist in abundance, the contents of the building are in great danger even if the fire is suppressed in a proper manner.

Also, the prevention of wildfires entails creating conscience among the population living near forests and large spaces of vegetation. Letting the residents know that they are the ones that can have the greatest impact in regards to starting a fire; therefore, they are the ones in charge of preventing them. If awareness is not raised successfully, there are still chances that fires can occur. Here is where our team plays a great role by generating new ways of preventing wildfires. In order to help those that risk their life when a fire takes place, the living beings that can be potentially harmed and their surroundings, such as edifications and forests, to preserve the goods inside a building once a fire occurs, and to help avoid fires in open spaces, this team decided to focus this design project in the development of an UAV that is going to prevent fires and also assist in extinguishing them.