From Battle Stations to Fire Stations

A squad of three fire-fighting robots has successfully completed trials with the London Fire Brigade, becoming the first robots to be deployed with the third-largest fire-fighting organization in the world. Developed by the U.K.-based military supplier QinetiQ, originally for bomb disposal in Iraq and Afghanistan, the robots are being used in fires involving acetylene-gas cylinders, which present a grave risk of explosion. With such fires, everyone within a radius of 200 meters is normally evacuated for up to 24 hours. The new robots can clear a path through debris to the cylinders, determine how hot the cylinders are, and even hose them down to keep them cool, allowing evacuation orders to be lifted in three hours or less.