About BurnBot
Wildfire has stopped being a season. BurnBot builds the machines that get ahead of it — remotely operated systems that apply and contain prescribed fire, and platforms that clear heavy fuel on terrain that isn’t safe for crews.
Our fleet is at work today for PG&E, CAL FIRE, the U.S. Forest Service, Caltrans, fire districts, and tribal nations across California, Oregon, and Washington — treating land at up to 40x the pace of conventional methods. We’re roboticists, engineers, and career fire practitioners. Hardware we design in South San Francisco is in the dirt within weeks, and the people who designed it are usually standing next to it.
THE ROLE
Our ground machines do the heavy work: applying and containing prescribed fire, and chewing through fuel loads on slopes where crews shouldn’t be. They run hot, dirty, and remote, and they have to keep running.
You’ll own major mechanical systems on those platforms end to end — concept, analysis, detail design, build, and the field failures that teach you what you got wrong.
WHAT YOU’LL OWN
Platform-level mechanical systems: chassis and weldments, drivetrain, hydraulics, implements, and the structures that live next to active fire
Make-versus-buy. Off-highway and agricultural suppliers already solve some of this well. Knowing when to buy and when to build is a big part of the job.
The trades that matter most to us, roughly in this order: cost, weight, capability, and how easily a crew can run and fix it in the field
Detail design and release: your own models, weldment drawings, tolerance stacks, and GD&T, plus the vendors and shops that build them
Durability. Heat, vibration, abrasive dust, and 12-hour shifts. You’ll set the test program and own what comes back from it
