Skyward Wildfire Technologies registered to lobby the Alberta government to discuss “potential summer operations in Alberta and the parameters of continued engagement with Alberta Wildfire around storm-detection technology.”

In May, Vancouver-based Skyward received up to $1 million from the B.C. government to conduct a field trial of its technology, which aims to reduce the number of wildfires caused by lightning.

The company says it uses AI to predict where a lightning strike is most likely to ignite a wildfire, such as in a very dry patch of grass, and where it is more likely to cause less damage.

After identifying high-risk areas, Skyward releases “lightning suppression material” into storm clouds. The company says the material redistributes electrical charges within the cloud, reducing the buildup that can lead to lighting strikes.

During Canada’s devastating 2023 wildfire season more than 150,000 square kilometers were burned, and 93 per cent of the fires that season were caused by lightning, according to the Canadian Climate Institute.

Just under half of the wildfires that start in Canada are caused by lightning, but lightning is responsible for about 83 per cent of the annual area burned.

Skyward says its products should be used alongside, not instead of, fire prevention techniques like controlled burns that are known to reduce the risk of wildfires.

Skyward has gotten funding from multiple venture capital firms and various governments’ research funding wings, including $700,000 from Innovate BC, just under $250,000 from Alberta Innovates and $170,000 from the federal National Research Council.

The company has also requested a nearly $2-million loan from the federal government.

Cloud-seeding, the technique of distributing materials into clouds to affect weather patterns, has existed for years. It has been met with some pushback, especially related to concerns about the contents of suppression material released into the atmosphere and unintended consequences of trying to control the weather.

Previous studies have been inconclusive about the ability to avert lightning using weather-modification techniques like cloud-seeding.

But Skyward says its forecasting technology is up to the task, and that the material it releases into the clouds is non-toxic and safe, acting only on electrical charges in the clouds with no effects on precipitation.

Riley Gough, press secretary for the Alberta Ministry of Forestry & Parks, said it is regularly evaluating new wildfire-suppression tools, including advances in AI weather insights.

“As of this time, Alberta's government is evaluating Skyward Wildfire’s lightning modelling and prediction technologies and closely monitoring results of studies and pilots actively ongoing in British Columbia. Alberta’s primary interest in the pilot is studying atmospheric data to identify when and where lightning-related wildfire risk is located across the province,” Gough said.

Skyward did not respond to the IJF’s request for comment.

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