Mayday.ai is proud to have participated in the XPRIZE Wildfire Space-Based Detection & Intelligence Track Finals, held in New South Wales, Australia, in partnership with the New South Wales Rural Fire Service.
The XPRIZE Wildfire Finals brought together 8 finalist teams from 4 countries at the New South Wales Rural Fire Service in Australia for the final testing phase of the Space-Based Detection & Intelligence Track. The teams competed for the $3.5 million grand prize, presented by the Minderoo Foundation, as part of the broader 4-year, $11 million XPRIZE Wildfire competition.
Finals testing was designed to evaluate how space-based wildfire detection systems perform under real-world conditions. Based out of the NSW Rural Fire Service Headquarters in Homebush, Australia, teams used AI, machine learning, and space-based sensing to detect and characterize prescribed fires and bushfires across New South Wales. Over 12-hour testing windows, teams worked to detect and characterize fires across an area larger than 800,000 square kilometers, while also identifying and minimizing false positives.
The Finals also included a VIP event in New South Wales, where innovators, fire management leaders, and technology teams gathered to discuss the future of wildfire detection and response. The event featured team presentations, practical discussions on wildfire technology, and a finalist panel moderated by Nicholas Gover, with participation from Mayday AI’s Kian Mirshahi alongside other finalist teams.
For Mayday.ai, the Finals represented an important opportunity to demonstrate the company’s real-time wildfire intelligence capabilities in an operational setting. The experience reinforced the importance of combining Earth Observation, multimodal AI, geospatial analytics, and emergency-response workflows into systems that can support faster detection, stronger situational awareness, and more actionable decision-making.
“The XPRIZE Wildfire Finals were an extraordinary opportunity to test, learn, and collaborate alongside leading innovators and fire management experts,” said Kian Mirshahi, Founder and CEO of Mayday.ai. “For Mayday.ai, this was about more than competition. It was about proving that AI, satellite data, and multi-source intelligence can help detect wildfires earlier and support responders when every minute matters.”
The XPRIZE event highlighted several themes central to the future of wildfire resilience, including the need for global accessibility, stronger collaboration between innovators and fire agencies, and the ability to scale wildfire intelligence tools quickly as fires become more complex and harder to contain.
Mayday.ai thanks XPRIZE, the Minderoo Foundation, the New South Wales Rural Fire Service, the judging panel, sponsors, partners, and all participating teams for advancing the future of wildfire detection and response. The Finals mark an important milestone in Mayday.ai’s mission to build AI-powered early warning systems that help protect lives, infrastructure, ecosystems, and communities from the growing threat of wildfires.
