A robot tames the flames

BurnBot, called a 'Roomba for the forest,' could be the Southland's next wildfire weapon

- By Noah Haggerty

BURNBOT, above, creates a controlled burn, top, to incinerate flammable vegetation and help reduce fire risk. The giant vehicle is operated by remote control.

The giant, remote-controlled vehicle — somewhere between a tractor trailer, a tank and a Zamboni in appearance — slowly rolled across the dry, brittle grass growing between the tangle of freeways making up the 101 and 23 interchange in Thousand Oaks.

Inside the beast, fire churned. And as it rolled over the land, that fire incinerated any brush it encountered, leaving only a thin smoke cloud billowing from the top of the machine, some flashes of orange and red from behind its metal skirt and, in its wake, a desolate, smoldering black line.

BurnBot isn't the fastest way to rid a landscape of dangerously flammable vegetation (it tops out at around 0.5 mph) but it can do something that traditional vegetation management techniques cannot: With almost surgical precision, it can kill the flammable brush sitting within feet of homes and highways on even the hottest and driest days and with virtually no safety risks or disruptions to daily life.

On a recent summer afternoon, as wildland firefighters maneuvered the machine and mopped up the charred earth on a stretch of highway about 30 miles west of Los Angeles on the 101, a who's who of SoCal's wildfire leadership looked on - from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, local fire departments, Caltrans, the U.S. forest and park services, Southern California Edison and the state Legislature. The sweet smoky smell of wildland fire permeated the hot midday air. The onlookers quietly took notes.