LINCOLN, Neb. — October 02, 2026 — Drone Amplified, Inc., a leader in drone-based aerial ignition and fire management technology, today announced that the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) has issued an Indefinite-Delivery, Indefinite-Quantity (IDIQ) contract, identifying Drone Amplified's IGNIS Aerial Ignition system as the sole-source solution for a contract with a potential value of up to $25 million.
The justification reflects a six-year relationship between Drone Amplified and the USFS, which today operates a fleet of hundreds of IGNIS systems in wildfire suppression and prescribed fire operations nationwide. The IDIQ points to the agency's intent to standardize its unmanned aircraft fleet around the IGNIS platform — a move it says will streamline maintenance, reduce training costs, and improve turnaround times for fire and aviation operations.
The scale of the IGNIS system’s usage has grown quickly. According to the USFS's FY24 UAS Program Report, the agency logged 855 hours of UAS aerial ignition flight time in fiscal year 2024 — a 241% increase over the prior year — treating nearly 189,000 acres and deploying more than 733,000 ignition spheres. In USFS Region 8 alone, UAS aerial ignition supported prescribed burns across more than 147,000 acres.
“The Forest Service has been flying IGNIS since nearly the beginning of this company, and this justification reflects years of trust built one fire season at a time," said Carrick Detweiler, CEO of Drone Amplified. "We built IGNIS to give fire managers a safer, more precise way to fight fire from the air, and watching that grow into a fleet of hundreds of systems nationwide is exactly the impact we set out to have"
A sole-source contract of this scale will allow the USFS to further scale its aerial ignition capacity in the years ahead. Expanded IGNIS use directly benefits the communities living near fire-prone landscapes: aerial ignition by drone lets fire managers conduct prescribed burns and contain wildfires in terrain too steep, remote, or hazardous for ground crews or helicopters. That translates into more consistent fuel-reduction work near at-risk communities, faster containment response during active wildfires, and lower operational risk to firefighting personnel overall.
About Drone Amplified's IGNIS
IGNIS is a drone-mounted aerial ignition system used by fire management agencies to conduct prescribed burns and support wildfire containment. Mounted on a US-made drone, IGNIS dispenses incendiary spheres that ignite after dropping, allowing crews to set prescribed fires from the air with precision. The system is designed to improve the safety, efficiency, and control of fire operations.
Drone Amplified's latest system, IGNIS III Mini, packs that capability into a compact, three-case kit that deploys in minutes — putting crews in the air fast enough to catch narrow burn windows, reach terrain inaccessible on foot, and monitor fire progression in real time via onboard thermal imaging.
About Drone Amplified
Drone Amplified develops drone-based systems for hazardous environmental mitigation. They design hardware and software to support professionals working in wildfire and avalanche operations with tools intended to improve access, reduce exposure, and expand operational capability. The company grew out of research at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and has offices in Nebraska and New Jersey.
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