Advanced Technology to Create a Resilient Civilization
“Fortune falls heavily on those for whom she’s unexpected. The one always on the lookout easily endures.”
Lucius Seneca, On Consolation to Helvia, 5.3
Fire is Coming
On September 9, 2020 the sun did not rise. Wildfire smoke blocked out the light across northern California. Homes burned. People died across the state. It was a tragedy and a dark omen for the future. In January 2025, hundreds of thousands more were impacted by the Palisades fire in Southern California less than one year after a million acres burned in Texas. Sadly, these are not the last tragedies.
Since the early 2000s, fire intensity has nearly tripled. The number of fires per year has grown even more quickly. 2025 will be the most expensive and destructive fire year in US history. So far. Fire growth has well known sources: higher temperatures, lower humidity, drought, overly dense forests as a result of forest management and suppression practices, and more homes built into the wildland urban interface. It used to be that firefighters might see one 100,000 acre fire in their career. In the last five years we’ve seen four one million acre fires in North America, some happening in places previously untouched by megafires. However you look at it, fire is coming.
We must respond.
We have a moral imperative to eliminate the wildfire risk.
And yet, in our society we ignore risks even as data shows growing danger. Ignoring the danger does not limit the cost to the US economy of wildfire — now roughly $1 trillion per year. It has not stopped homes from burning, and residents and firefighters from dying. It has not stopped insurance companies from dropping homeowners across the western US. And it has not stopped the incineration of some of our most precious wild spaces. From destruction of our communities, to the pollution of our air, water and atmosphere, to the destruction of critical forest lands, we will all feel the impact of wildfire in our lifetime.
The American way of life has always been about pioneering. Since our county’s founding, our destiny has been to thrive and to grow — to grow into the beautiful and uncharted mountains, forests, plains and deserts. That spirit is threatened today. If we cannot keep our communities safe from fire, there will be no insurance, no mortgages, and no American West.
Indeed, hundreds of thousands more Americans every year now are denied insurance. State subsidized programs cannot cover this forever. If we want to continue living in the beautiful spaces on which the American Dream was built, there is only one answer: to reduce risk. We must respond. This is a battle we must win.
We will win with technology.
Firefighters are heroes. These individuals run into burning buildings to save us. They fly helicopters into 70+ mph winds to protect homes and rescue their brothers and sisters on the ground. They sleep in the dirt, sometimes for weeks on end, away from their families, to keep other people’s property safe. My son thinks firefighters are superheroes, and he is right.
And make no mistake, this is a fight. In the last decade, fire has proved itself a far more dangerous and deadly adversary than any foreign nation. Dating back nearly a century, the US has maintained military superiority through technology. It is time we bring the same approach to fighting the wildfire threat. As the fire threat grows stronger, we must modernize the tools we give our fire fighting forces - for suppression and prevention - the same way we have modernized our war fighting equipment.
Seneca’s philosophy is to build advanced technology to empower the firefighter in situations that were previously impossible, unsafe, or inefficient. Technological innovation is how we will keep our heroes and communities safe, and ultimately win against out of control fire.
Our mission: Protect 500 million acres in the US and allied nations from wildfire threat by 2035.
Many of the world’s leading fire professionals come to the same solution on wildfire: early response and early suppression. We need to stop small fires before they become megafires.
Today, advances in AI, autonomous aviation, and 3D printing — the same technologies that transformed the war against Russia — are making this possible. Seneca uses them in the war against fire: to get to new starts faster, to stop spot fires before they spread, to precision strike embers on roofs that could burn whole neighborhoods, and to supercharge our firefighting forces. We deserve a future that risks a drone in high winds instead of a human, where remotely launched aerial response to fires in under five minutes, and an initial attack doesn’t require $25 million and a helipad. The technology is there to force multiply each exceptional firefighter. This is the moment to modernize our firefighting arsenal. And to make it in the US.
Seneca is the first and only company that builds autonomous suppression drone systems that can launch from anywhere, leverage AI to navigate to and knock down fires, cut response times to fewer than five minutes, and provide modular aerial capabilities in other critical situations. Seneca’s systems can be stationed remotely in our highest risk areas and networked together to fulfill the vision of so many fire chiefs: stopping a fire within minutes of detection. Beyond this, we recognize the need for good fire and have built our systems to improve the safety and efficiency of prescribed fire and fuel reduction for risk mitigation and ecosystem health. We are working with world class fire agencies, utilities, and landowners in the wildland urban interface who share our belief that we can, together, create a safer future.
We will persevere.
After taking my first company public, I wanted to build something to materially improve long term human habitability on this planet in hostile environmental and geopolitical climates. Now almost two years into collaborating with fire professionals and public servants, I can imagine no better place to do one’s life’s work. It is an extraordinary privilege to work alongside my founding partners Nick Foley, Bill Clerico, Adrian Aoun, David Glazer and Seneca’s entire exceptional team.
I walked recently through a national park with my wife and children — 8, 6, and 2 years old — and looked at the hillsides covered in beautiful, dry golden grass. This is a beautiful country, and over half of it is, still, open space. Fire and other dangers are going to threaten our way of life, especially in the American West. We must protect it. This is why we are building Seneca. And why we must persevere.
Amor Fati.
Stuart Landesberg, Founder & CEO
