CNN —At the end of July, Colorado became the latest US state to battle the spread of wildfires. There are satellites, which orbit the exosphere, between 375 miles (600 kilometers) and 6,200 miles (10,000 kilometers) above Earth, and also provide imagery, but often of a much lower quality than one of Urban Sky’s balloons. Another upside of Urban Sky’s balloons is cost, he says. It wants to create a model for both selling the balloons outright and operating the balloons itself while selling data as a service. “As wildfires continue to increase in frequency, intensity, magnitude and duration, such technology for managing wildfires could not come soon enough,” says Fisher.

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Persons: Alexander, Jared Leidich, ”, Leidich, Joshua Fisher, perimeters, Ben Miller, Riley Reid, Urban, Fisher Organizations: CNN, Initiative, Urban, Sky, Concorde, California’s Chapman University, NASA, The Colorado Center of Excellence, Technology, US Geological Survey, NASA FireSense Locations: Colorado, Fort Collins, South Dakota, Briggsdale , Colorado