Alex Deslauriers and Melanie Bitner’s home was one of 56 properties destroyed by the Downton Lake wildfire two years ago.  A fire tornado … swept through the community of Gun Lake, about 61 kilometres north of Pemberton, B.C., in August 2023, during Canada’s most destructive fire season on record. A working aerospace engineer, Deslauriers started brainstorming innovative ways to fight wildfires, to prevent others from a similar fate. …Along with David Thanh, a former B.C. Wildfire warden and Bitner, a communications expert, the trio co-founded Fireswarm Solutions — a Canadian company that, once testing is done, aims to supply heavy-duty drones to first responders. Known as Thunder Wasp drones, these quad-rotor drones UAVs, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, are built by Swedish aerospace company ACC Innovations. …FireSwam is working with the Strategic Natural Resource Group to test the drones’ ability to fight wildfire in B.C. over the course of the wildfire season.