Center of Excellence for Advanced Technology Aerial Firefighting

10/16/2026

Behind every wildfire is a story of the land, the people, and the communities left to navigate its lasting impacts. 🔥

For The High Lonesome Ranch in western Colorado, that story includes the 2020 Pine Gulch Fire, which burned nearly 95,000 acres of the landscape the ranch manages. 🐄

But the story doesn't end there.

Today, The High Lonesome Ranch continues its commitment to protecting and restoring the land, from managing vegetation through innovative grazing practices to supporting new approaches to wildfire response.

That commitment is what makes the ranch's partnership with the Center of Excellence so meaningful.

When our team needed a location to conduct validation testing of the Precision Guided Suppression Unit (PGSU), The High Lonesome Ranch opened its property and helped make the project possible.

We're grateful to The High Lonesome Ranch team for their partnership, commitment to land stewardship, and willingness to support innovation that could one day give firefighters more aerial options when responding to and suppressing wildfires.

Read our community impact feature to learn how a ranch profoundly affected by wildfire is now helping create opportunities to advance wildfire response. 🌲

🔗 https://cofiretech.gov/the-high-lonesome-ranch-role-in-advancing-wildfire-response

📸 Pine Gulch Fire photos courtesy of The High Lonesome Ranch

10/13/2026

In 2020, the Pine Gulch Fire became the largest wildfire in Colorado’s recorded history at the time, burning more than 139,000 acres across western Colorado. Nearly 95,000 of those acres were part of the landscape managed by The High Lonesome Ranch.

Six years later, that same ranch is helping write a different chapter in Colorado’s wildfire story.

Near De Beque, The High Lonesome Ranch manages about 225,000 acres where cattle ranching, conservation, and responsible land stewardship go hand in hand. When the Pine Gulch Fire swept through the property, its impacts extended far beyond the burned landscape, affecting livestock, grazing operations and the land the ranch works to protect.

Today, the ranch continues exploring ways to strengthen wildfire resilience. From bringing in more than 1,500 goats to help manage vegetation and reduce wildfire fuels to opening its property for the Center of Excellence and Prime Minute to test and validate the Precision Guided Suppression Unit (PGSU), the ranch supports different approaches to a challenge it knows all too well.

For General Manager Travis Brooks, exploring new wildfire technologies matters beyond protecting the landscape.

“Saving one life of a first responder is probably worth all the effort that we can put into it.”

That perspective is at the heart of our latest community impact feature.

We went behind the scenes at The High Lonesome Ranch to learn more about its history, the lasting impacts of the Pine Gulch Fire, and why the ranch chose to partner with the Center of Excellence to support the testing and validation of an emerging aerial firefighting technology.

We’re grateful to The High Lonesome Ranch and Travis Brooks for sharing their story and helping make this important work possible.

Discover how a landscape once devastated by wildfire is now helping create opportunities for the future of wildfire response. 🌲 Read the feature:

Six years after the Pine Gulch Fire burned 95,000 acres of ranch-managed land, The High Lonesome Ranch is helping create opportunities to explore new approaches to initial wildfire attack.On July 31, 2020, lightning ignited a wildfire in remote terrain about 18 miles north of Grand Junction, Colorad...

10/12/2026

CBS Colorado reporter Sarah Horbacewicz went above and beyond in capturing the PGSU validation project, highlighting a very important community partner: The High Lonesome Ranch. 🐄

When the CoE required a large, safe, and accessible area to test the PGSU, The High Lonesome Ranch generously stepped forward to assist. We sincerely appreciate their partnership and the opportunity to use their land for this important project.

Read the full story below ⬇️

The technology is being tested by Colorado's Center of Excellence for Advanced Technology Aerial Firefighting, which is part of Colorado's Division of Fire Prevention and Control.

10/12/2026

Thank you to 9NEWS (KUSA) reporter Beth Verge for putting together such a great story on our recent validation project of the Precision Guided Suppression Unit (PGSU). We are excited to finally share this project with the world and look forward to seeing how advanced technology will shape the future of public safety. Read the full story below ⬇️

'Precision-guided suppression units' resemble winged, aluminum barrels from afar, but the highly engineered containers could make wildfire season more manageable.

10/08/2026

What did we set out to accomplish? What went well? What didn’t go as planned? And how can we improve next time?

These questions are core to the public safety community and equally essential when evaluating new technology.

During operational testing of the Precision Guided Suppression Unit (PGSU), the Center of Excellence assessed the technology in several key areas: safety, precision, and accuracy.

Some outcomes confirmed our expectations, while others revealed challenges that require further development. Both types of results are valuable.

Research and development isn’t about proving that every idea works; it’s about gaining the knowledge needed to identify which ideas are worth pursuing and how to improve them.

Testing is an ongoing process. Our partnership with Prime Minute is far from over; this is just the beginning. We’ll continue to share updates and improvements at cofiretech.gov/pgsu as the project evolves.

10/06/2026

Who has the capacity, resources, and dedicated mission to determine whether a promising wildfire technology can truly become an operational reality?

In Colorado, that’s where the CoE comes in.

The CoE is a government organization staffed by a full-time team that researches, develops, tests, and evaluates advanced technologies for aerial firefighting and all areas of public safety.

Our team’s role goes beyond addressing today’s incidents; we’re also anticipating the tools and capabilities responders will need in the future.

By uniting emerging technology with researchers, industry partners, operational experts, and realistic testing environments, we learn what works, identify limitations, and chart the course from promising ideas to actionable field solutions.

Our ongoing work with the Precision Guided Suppression Unit (PGSU) illustrates this mission in practice. Learn more about the PGSU validation project at cofiretech.gov/pgsu.

10/02/2026

What if the next breakthrough in wildfire suppression isn’t just an incremental improvement, but a fundamentally new approach?

Aerial firefighting has advanced for decades through better aircraft, improved information sharing, stronger coordination, and lessons learned from every incident. These ongoing improvements are essential and important.

Yet the Center of Excellence is charged with looking beyond incremental progress and envisioning what the future of wildfire response could be.

The Precision Guided Suppression Unit (PGSU) allows us to explore a different tactical concept: deploying multiple GPS-guided suppression units to deliver targeted water drops on emerging fires. This approach also examines their effectiveness in scenarios where traditional aerial firefighting resources are limited or unavailable.

Could technologies like the PGSU redefine where, when, or how we fight wildfires?
Operational testing helps us answer that question. To learn more about the PGSU validation project, visit cofiretech.gov/pgsu.

09/29/2026

Thank you, KRDO13, for helping us share the CoE story in the recent announcement regarding our operational and validation project on the Precision Guided Suppression Unit (PGSU). 🔥

We're proud to showcase this innovation with the wildland fire community, first responders, and Colorado residents as we work toward a new generation of aerial suppression. ✈️

A team of 16 first responders is developing a new aerial firefighting system called the Precision Guided Suppression Unit right here in Colorado. The aircraft-dropped system is engineered to drop more than 100 gallons of water directly onto targeted wildfire areas. Read more at the link in our comments.

09/28/2026

A single Precision Guided Suppression Unit (PGSU) carries 110 gallons of water, but its true effectiveness comes from being part of a larger system.

In this system, an aircraft transports and deploys several GPS-guided PGSUs, each loaded with 110 gallons of water. These units are released in rapid succession, allowing for multiple, targeted water drops as part of a coordinated suppression effort.

Each PGSU uses GPS technology to navigate precisely to a designated location and then disperses its water through a specially engineered system that maximizes coverage and suppression effectiveness.

This approach is more than just improving existing aerial drops; it represents a fundamentally different strategy for wildfire suppression. ➡️ Swipe to learn more

09/25/2026

Every catastrophic wildfire begins as a small fire. 🔥

But what happens when we can’t deploy suppression resources immediately?

Conditions such as nightfall, thick smoke, severe weather, challenging terrain, limited resources, or aircraft constraints can all create what the CoE calls a "denied environment." In these situations, traditional firefighting methods cannot engage the fire effectively.

When suppression is delayed or denied, the fire gains something critical: time. Time to spread, intensify, and pose greater risks to communities, infrastructure, and natural resources.

Addressing this challenge is a key focus for the Center of Excellence.

We are actively researching new technologies and innovative suppression strategies to expand our options in denied environments and help close the gap between ignition and effective fire suppression.

Learn more about the PGSU validation project and the denied environment at cofiretech.gov/pgsu.