The United States has had its most devastating wildfire season on record, with more than 8 million acres of land burned across the country this year.
Regenerating the forests that sat on much of that land would ordinarily take years and involve hundreds of people manually replanting saplings grown in dedicated nurseries.
Seattle-based DroneSeed has what it says is a much faster and more effective solution. As the company's name suggests, it uses fleets of drones (also known as drone swarms) to reforest areas that have burned down, dropping what it calls "seed vessels" into areas where they have the best chance of growing back.
The eight-foot drones, up to five at a time flying together on pre-programmed routes, can cover up to 50 acres a day and each carry as much as 57 pounds of seed vessels, DroneSeed CEO Grant Canary told CNN Business.