Introduction

"RAIN" is an acronym for "Rapid Aerial Inferno Neutralization" (System). The name was chosen because the system effectively creates artificial rain over a fire. It delivers massive payloads to fires with surgical precision, and it can be deployed 24/7 and in any weather, including winds and smoke.

Current wildfire fighting technology cannot reliably reach serious fires in rugged terrain, when winds blow strong and/or at night.

Firefighters often have to wait until fires are huge and totally out of control. It has to be daylight and winds have to be reasonably low before air assets can attack wildfires now. Ground assets are very weak against these large fires because of the small payloads that can be carried by trucks and their inabilities to access fires in rugged terrain where there are inadequate or no roads. RAIN changes all of that.

Some Key Features

RAIN is a simple combination of resources that are readily available and fully proven. This new system uses large, fast aircraft flying on instruments in virtually any weather conditions 24/7, even at night. All of the technologies used in the system have been proven in other areas: in particular, by the military. There are no "new inventions" needed. The technology risk of the project development is therefore low.

RAIN uses fast aircraft. These turbojet planes can fly quickly from a centralized base to any fire at very high speeds. In the western US, for example, all 11 states embracing the Rockies and to the west can be serviced by one base, or for quicker response, just a few bases (e.g., 4). Now there are many bases because the aircraft used are slow and have relatively low payloads. This is a very expensive approach compared to the promise of the RAIN System.

Details

A username and password are required to view more details of the RAIN System. If you have those, please proceed to System Details now.

The procedures for learning more about this system are described in the next section, below. Alternatively, please Contact Us to get authorization for more details about RAIN.

Participation

Getting involved in this project can have many benefits, as discussed in the "Joining" section of this site.

Also, please visit the page describing the FITECO organization which is presently developing the system to see if you may have an interest in participating. If you do please visit our Contact page for instructions. And thank you for your interest in this vital system.