LOS ANGELES — Three satellites that will watch for wildfires have reached orbit, Cal Fire announced on Tuesday.

The FireSat satellites aim to transform how the world detects, responds and recovers from wildfires, according to the Earth Fire Alliance, or EFA, — the company behind the satellites.

“Earth Fire Alliance and Cal Fire partnered to help test and evaluate the early concepts that brought this technology to life. Today, that work continues alongside the Earth Fire Alliance, Muon Space, Google, and partners worldwide,” the fire agency said in a post on social media.

According to EFA, the FireSat satellites were designed and built by EFA founding technical partner Muon Space and were launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California as part of SpaceX’s Transporter-17 rideshare mission.

“No single government, sector, or organization can solve the wildfire crisis alone. FireSat is the result of radical collaboration: visionary philanthropists who invested early; Muon Space, which designed and built these spacecrafts and their instruments; and the fire agencies and scientists whose early input helped tailor the system specifically for firefighting,” said Brian Collins, Executive Director of Earth Fire Alliance in a statement. “These three satellites prove that when public and private sectors unite, we can deliver breakthrough technology to protect our planet.” 

🛰️ Three satellites just reached orbit, and they’re watching for wildfires.

Earlier this morning, the first three FireSat satellites launched into orbit, marking the beginning of a new space-based wildfire detection system designed to help identify fires in near real time.… pic.twitter.com/V1cKbSn4Wx

— CAL FIRE (@CAL_FIRE) July 7, 2026

 

The three satellites will now undergo a calibration phase and three months of testing before fire agencies can start using the data, according to Cal Fire.

The fire agency also said there will be a “constellation of 50 satellites in orbit.” Once all 50 are in orbit, FireStat satellites will detect fires 5 by 5 meters anywhere on Earth and will provide updates to fire agencies every 20 minutes or fewer.  

According to its website, EFA is a global nonprofit coalition building the technological infrastructure the world needs to detect, monitor and understand fire — and delivering critical data to the firefighters, scientists and communities who need it most.