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In 2025 an autonomous Sikorsky Black Hawk fought live test fires in California; a state pilot bill later died and a CAL FIRE deal followed.
In April 2025, an optionally piloted Sikorsky Black Hawk flew autonomous wildfire missions over live fires in Hesperia, California. Rain's account of the tests says the aircraft ran Sikorsky's MATRIX flight autonomy plus Rain's wildfire mission system. In August 2025 the Los Angeles Times described the demonstration in Victorville, and what followed since is more sober than the pitch.
The pitch was attractive: lightning strikes at night, sensors spot the blaze, an autonomous helicopter plans its attack, measures wind and fire movement, and drops water before the fire grows past 10 square feet. The stated target in the LA Times piece was to hold 95% of California fires to that size or less. Rain's own write-up is more modest. It describes a layered system in which the pilot or incident commander chooses how much autonomy to use.
What the tests actually showed
Per Rain, the flights covered two weeks and 24 hours of flight time, at about 3,300 feet and with gusts up to 30 knots. San Bernardino County firefighters built and lit the brush piles. CAL FIRE, Orange County Fire Authority and the U.S. Forest Service watched. That is a controlled, early-stage setup. Useful, but a long way from a wind-driven fire next to homes.
What happened next
It covers the S-70i FIREHAWK and the Black Hawk with MATRIX autonomy; CAL FIRE operates 16 FIREHAWKs. The legislative route did worse. AB 270, a bill for an autonomous firefighting pilot project, was held in the Assembly Appropriations Committee and died on January 31, 2026.
We found no source confirming an operational deployment of the autonomous Black Hawk, and the sources we have do not cover everything since. What we can say is narrower. The technology was demonstrated on staged fires, a state agency signed up to explore it with the manufacturer, and the bill meant to create a pilot program did not advance.
Our take: this is a credible prototype moving through a slow institutional process, which is normal for aviation. The interesting part is the layered design, where autonomy is a dial rather than a switch. Until real incident data is published, treat the 10-square-foot promise as a goal, not a result.
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