Nearly two years after the Borel Fire devastated the town of Havilah and surrounding areas burning nearly 60,000 acres recovery remains a long road. It can take years, even decades, for a pre-fire state to return, and even lon ger for full forest restoration.A drone company called Hylio, founded by several University of Texas students, is working to change that. The company, built for a variety of applications, recently shipped its 1,000th drone.Hylio CEO and co-founder Arthur Erickson said the company's use in wildland fire reseeding came through a Canadian company in 2021-22, when they asked him about using drones for post-fire reforestation."They would go to the mountainsides, which are normally quite difficult to traverse by foot or with other vehicles, and instead use our drones to drop they had created a proprietary puck of dirt, so to speak, not just dirt, but nutrients and they would, using a proprietary launcher system they had created mounted to a drone, plant tens of thousands of seeds in these pods into the ground on the mountainsides per day," Erickson said.The company sells to individual farmers, the U.S. Department of Transportation, the USDA, the Army, and the Bureau of Land Management. The drones have also been used for prescribed burns, launching flaming projectiles to ignite controlled burns.This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.Stay in Touch with Us Anytime, Anywhere: Download Our Free App for Apple and Android Sign Up for Our Daily E-mail Newsletter Like Us on Facebook Follow Us on Instagram Subscribe to Us on YouTube ...read more read less