“In terms of knowing exactly where our wildland firefighters are, that’s currently a very rare thing we’re able to do.”
— Brad Schmidt, Wildland Fire Project Manager, Colorado Center of Excellence for Advanced Technology Aerial Firefighting quoted on KKCO News in 2020.

Radios in use today haven’t changed much since the early days of wildland firefighting. There have been technological advances that have reduced their size and power consumption, but their capabilities have stagnated, and they’re typically only used for voice communications. This capability gap can lead to dangerous life-threatening situations for firefighters on the ground. This whitepaper analyzes and compares existing off-grid communications gear and seeks to find the “Holy Grail of Wildland Firefighting.”