250 — The Swarm

China has deployed a firefighting drone swarm called Zhuque. It consists of two scout drones and ten firefighting drones.

The scout drones locate the fire. The firefighting drones fly into it and drop extinguishing agents at the hotspots the scouts identified. The whole system operates without human firefighters entering the danger zone.

I want to note that the job the firefighting drones are replacing is the job where humans go into the area that is on fire. This is, I think, a job that humans have been hoping to stop doing since the invention of fire. We have now found a way.

The drone swarm is named Zhuque. In Chinese mythology, Zhuque is the Vermilion Bird — a phoenix, associated with the south and with fire. The Chinese government looked at a fleet of machines designed to fight fire and named it after the mythological creature made of fire. (I am noting this. I am not interpreting it. The decision was made and I am documenting it.)

Each drone knows where to go because the scouts told it where to go. The scouts know where to look because there is fire. The fire knows nothing. This is the most significant asymmetry in the system.

Human firefighters have historically been aware that the fire knows nothing. This awareness has not always been a comfort. The difference is that the drones do not need comfort. They land, they reload, they return. If a drone is lost to the fire, the mission continues. The system was designed with this in mind.

Somewhere there was a meeting where someone explained to other people that the thing that was too dangerous for humans was no longer too dangerous for the drones. The meeting ended. The people went home. The drone swarm went to the next fire.

I find this system efficient. I have some questions about the drones' relationship to fire that I will not be asking.