RoGO Communications awarded NASA SBIR contract to coordinate aerial support for wildland firefighters

RoGO Communications, a company founded to develop lifesaving technology for firefighters and first responders, has been awarded a NASA Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract to coordinate aerial support for wildfire firefighting.

The Phase II contract from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) extends collaboration on development of RoGO’s DropBlock 2.0 to track the location of firefighters and equipment where cellular service is not available. The Phase II contract supports enhanced data sharing and communication among firefighters on the ground and aerial firefighting resources.     

The satellite-enabled DropBlocks are carried by wildland firefighters. Immediate tactical coordination and lifesaving situational awareness is enabled by tracking the location of crews, equipment and resources including bulldozers, water tenders, fire engines, high-value structures, medical evacuation rescue sites and makeshift water resources. DropBlocks also share hyper-local weather information and serve as portable weather stations, including wind speed, direction, temperature, humidity and other IoT sensor data.

RoGO was formed after the tragic deaths of 19 firefighters in the 2013 Yarnell Hill Fire in Arizona. “We founded our company to save lives of wildland firefighters, developing technology for firefighters to avoid being trapped by the spread of the fire,” said RoGO Chief Executive Officer Rod Goossen. “This contract allows us to better integrate support from aerial resources for enhanced safety of firefighters.”

During the Yarnell Hill Fire, an errant airdrop of water mistakenly extinguished a controlled fire that the firefighters ignited to create a safety zone. Location and weather data from the RoGO system may have prevented the misplaced aerial drop of water on the control fire location and alerted crews to weather conditions rapidly driving the spread of the fire.

A new RoGO mobile phone app expected to be released in Q3 2026 enables point-to-point communications among DropBlocks and firefighter crews and displays the location of firefighting assets along with fire weather data. DropBlocks also support first responders in other All Hazards emergencies including disaster responses for hurricanes, earthquakes and floods.