Wildflyer provides advanced analysis tools for wildfire management, with high-resolution weather and fuel data for precise incident response. The startup’s space tech solution integrates remote sensing, drone and weather data and offers actionable insights to firefighters in the field. Participating in the programme of ESA’s Dutch business incubator (ESA BIC Noordwijk), the company is spreading the word to modern wildland firefighting teams to get access to real-time data that covers the vital information they need to build wildfire resilience.

Imagine the scenario – being on a campsite with smoke from a wildfire clearly visible in the distance with that sense of uncertainty. Will it come in our direction or not? What are we supposed to do? Such an event will make a lasting impression and, some years later with news of the 2023 Greece mega fire (the largest ever in Europe) and rampant fires in Canada around the same time, this memory became the spark of an idea for a new business. This is the story of Daan Aerts, Wildflyer (co)founder and provider of fire forecast data that empowers firefighters and response teams with critical and intuitive tools, enhancing their preparedness, situational awareness and efficiency.
The startup was founded in late 2023 and began incubation at ESA BIC Noordwijk in October 2024. Daan plays a key role in the field by highlighting how crucial data-driven weather modelling is in understanding and managing wildfires. He hosts webinars where he provides expert input and is regularly involved in events, for example those organised by Fire-Res and and EFI (European Forest Institute). Innovative tech is urgently needed for modern wildland firefighting teams – which is where Wildflyer’s space tech solution comes in. The startup’s preliminary platform has already garnered interest across Europe and is solidifying its position as a pivotal resource in the fight against wildfires. We caught up with Daan to find out more.
What is your focus and how does Wildflyer stand out?

Our mission is to ensure everyone who’s involved with wildfire management gets access to the information that they need to make better decisions – in terms of wildfire resilience. There are many innovations in this area for interesting problems but once the tech has been built, it can be a struggle to find the connection with the people that actually need to use it in everyday life.
I think what sets us apart is that we don’t start by building something and then, only after a year, go out and see who wants to buy it. We start off with building strong relationships with our partners, understanding their mission and then asking: what do you need? And then we build it for you. We have purposefully tried to focus on real-world situations. Whether it’s planning meetings or crisis situations, we really try to see what is the exact thing that our customers need at that moment and how can we give them technology that’s very approachable for many people on the team.
What is your background and the make-up of your team?
I am a software engineer and serial entrepreneur with an educational background in plant sciences and environmental technology. The Wildflyer team consists of two tech guys here in the Netherlands, with myself as CEO and Joost Lubach as CTO.
What problem is your solution addressing?
Information technology in the wildfire sector is far behind other sectors and a great information disparity between regions and countries exist. Firefighting analysts don’t want to be spending hours creating weather bulletins by visiting maybe 30+ websites and manually copying-and-pasting the data – like they are doing up to now. This a clear problem and we know there is commitment to pay for a solution that provides high-quality and consistent data.
We are developing an easy-to-use wildfire intelligence application. It is designed to help fire suppression teams to easily create fire forecasts, situation overviews during incidents and post-fire reports. Our dashboard delivers fire forecast data in 1% of the time it currently takes customers, at higher quality and at a cost that is feasible for many fire services.
Wildflyer’s approach: The team is committed to leveraging space-related data technologies for the firefighting industry. The platform offers valuable insights on weather and other conditions that might fuel a fire’s spread, along with models to enhance wildfire prediction, detection and management capabilities, plus the data can be used for post-fire damage assessment.
Can you explain about the space connection?
The Wildflyer platform carries out innovative processing of satellite data and Earth observation data. We make remote sensing easy and accessible to fire managers: we create easy connections with multiple public satellites such as MODIS, VIIRS, Sentinel 1 and 2 and EUMETSAT. We also make use of global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) signals that can detect the Earth’s surface environments as a remote sensing tool. Combining the sophisticated open and closed meteorological data from 14 global weather forecasting and remote sensing agencies, we deliver it exactly in the way that the firefighters need for their analysis. This is combined with full data classification from Fire-Res and fire weather forecasts from the European Forest Fire Information Service.

Where stage are you currently at?
We already built our first prototype early last year and a few months later had our first sales. Then for the next half year, we were just building, building, building and meeting all the requirements that our customers have been throwing at us. Now, we’re at a stage where we’re really being adopted by handfuls of teams and so the next stage is growth. There’s not a marketplace where you sort of put an app like this and you just find everyone in Europe, so you need to really go deep into the network and that’s something that we really enjoy doing.
It’s a great network to be a part of but it can also be a difficult network to sell to as a startup. We have a number of really great ambassadors who know the network very well. Some of them are customers so they are already using our platform and then they’re, for example, teaching in other countries and showing our app’s capabilities there.
How will people access the data? Will it be app based?
We love technology and we need to build it for situations where you might not have internet – and not just out in the field. There might be a crisis for which you do not want to have; for instance, an emergency services system that just completely collapses if this app has a bug or something. So, yes, it’s a dashboard that operates anywhere – from the big screens in operation centres (where we’re already being used) to the use of fire buckets of the first line responders, who will go to a fire and they need to assess what the fire is going to do in the next hour and what is the safest angle of approach. We then tried to really integrate our tech with existing workflows. So, for example, most wildfire teams in Europe communicate via Telegram or WhatsApp – that’s where a lot of information sharing is done – and we meet them there, providing better information for them as well as collecting the data that they’re already used to sharing in those channels.

What is your go-to-market strategy?
I’ve had multiple startups before and I’ve just know ‘ve learned the hard way how unwise it is to invest 18 months in building something and only then go into a market. I think you need to start with the market and, in particular, start with their problem. I really believe that if the problem that you’re trying to solve is big enough for your target audience, they will forgive you for not having a perfect product and they will forgive you for being very buggy or that it is missing this and that. Instead they will be: yes finally, this is something that I’ve been looking for. If you don’t get that response with your first very ugly app, then I think you should just find another problem to work on.
Our dashboard delivers fire forecast data in 1% of the time it currently takes, at higher quality and lower cost
daan aerts
How was the experience of selling your first prototype?
I feel blessed to be working with and selling to the wildfire community and I’m so pleased they’re my target audience. For them, the impact is real – they are very down-to-earth and there’s no sort of snobby, we-need-to-fix-the-world attitude. To me, being a very good early-stage founder is being very good at listening and wanting to really connect with the people that you’re dealing with. So, yes product–market fit is important but before that it’s founder–market fit. If you don’t like spending 100 hours in the first couple of months talking with the people and just listening – not being in a mode of: look I’ve built this, do you want it – but just properly listening, then you won’t make progress. You need to be learning all the way. That authentic interest is going to be very natural and a real hook for later making your sale.
What drew you to participate in ESA BIC?
Well, there’s two main reasons. First, as an early-stage founder looking for money, the financial aid offered by ESA BIC is substantial and it’s a great process to go through. I really appreciate that. And secondly, I am a big lover of space. Around 10 years ago, I started an initiative called “Hashtag Mars” – a community of scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, academics and space enthusiasts interested in a human mission to Mars. Back then, we were thinking that this field was something ESA had exclusive access, until I realised we just needed more talented entrepreneurs to dedicate themselves to space. So, I am now enjoying being back in my space-nerd vibes here.

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What are you initially focusing on during incubation?
We are busy with product development and sales. At this stage, building relationships with customers takes a lot of time, which we enjoy. We launched in a lean way, with the first prototype being a fraction of the total capabilities. The ongoing development of the platform leverages artificial intelligence and machine learning to enhance wildfire prediction, detection and management capabilities – such as for smoke plume detection, fire spread detection and optimising resource allocation during firefighting efforts. There are regular tech updates and, with each iteration and new release, the platform is tested. We’re also carrying out lots of user interviews.
What aspects of the ESA BIC programme appeal to you?
The technical support will be great. I already have the expertise in geoprocessing for the algorithms that we are developing. But setting up the geospatial data processing infrastructure that scales without immediately bankrupting you, is an area from a technical perspective that I welcome support. Remote sensing is quite new to us, and we’re exploring ways to crunch terabytes of geospatial data efficiently.
Then, also the business support and getting insights of new sales approaches. For instance, selling to governments. Right now, we’re focused on the end users, which is fun but you do you stay at a certain pricing points. We envision our value proposition will allow us to go for bigger contracts. I’m hoping the ESA network will help us get support to participate in European tenders on a national or local level. The coaching support we received so far has already sharpened my view of what the market segment actually looks like and I’m looking forward to seeing what develops.

What challenges do you expect during incubation?
The market in the different countries is a challenge as there can be a bit of a “not built here” mentality and the question remains whether the countries we’re selling to will use it, as they are very accustomed to using their own solutions. It’s an inspiring thought that we could get regional fire departments everywhere in Europe using our platform and then we’d need to consider whether we’d start using commercial data providers to do some of the things that we’re doing. It’s a diffuse market, so if you do convince maybe a couple of fire departments in France, as we have, then you might convince some of their friends but it doesn’t mean that it connects to the neighbouring country for instance. It does help to see we’re already valuable in certain countries but the market is diffuse and can be stubborn.
In terms of innovation, I don’t see that many challenges there to be honest. As soon as we have a bigger market share, we will be very happy to take on technical challenges for any aspects that we realise could be built and that should be built – but we would only do that once we actually are very cash flow positive.
Which markets are you focusing on and what is your approach?
So far, our market includes just about every country in the European Union, with the app being available in seven languages. Our current priority segments are France, Italy and Greece. There are two countries that are too advanced for us right now – that is Spain and Portugal – as, in general, they are very well established in the development arena with a lot of resources at their disposal. I think we’ll be able to do better quite soon but for now there’s no value added for them.

We want the people on the ground to have access to our platform, though often they aren’t the ones with the decision making power. Within each fire service, there are wildfire specialists and it is these key coordinators that we need to talk to. Such customers are in international networks and we’re also part of those and we have contacts, for instance, in the European Crisis Response Centre, Fire-Res and Advanced Fire Analysis Network. It is a small world, with maybe 2000 people in Europe who are the responsible people for wildfires, representing up to 200,000 people who need to get the data.
What are your future ambitions for the company?
I’m looking forward to most surviving this phase and staying bootstrapped. I think I’m a bit different than most entrepreneurs in that I believe that startups who are just funded by their customers and sales are not only inherently the most focused but also just have the most fun and that’s why we’re trying to stay bootstrapped as much as possible. My aesthetic of how to run a business is that you get an investment as soon as the demand outstrips supply; as soon as you just cannot cater to the requests you’re getting, that’s the moment where you’re going to go to an investor. I’m contra to most of the rest of the world but that’s just how I like to do it.
My biggest ambitions are mission focused. So, we are now selling to fire services who need to be good at suppressing fires but I would hope that we will be selling, in 2 years, to thousands of communities in Europe or around the world and helping them make their own community more safe with wildfires. Most of the data can be used for suppression and you can use it for preventive action, so it’s also about landscape management. In general, healthy and biodiverse ecosystems are also in a healthy balance with fire. So our offering covers everything from prevention to suppression to post-fire restoration.
Would you encourage entrepreneurs to apply to ESA BIC?
Yes: Following my story, if you have a good space related company and a good business idea, then ESA BIC can be a great way to sort of get through the early phase without the need getting external investments. We absolutely would not be where we are without ESA BIC
ABOUT WILDFLYER
Wildflyer is a technology company specialising in advanced solutions for wildland fire management. It serves wildfire analysts and professionals by providing mission-critical data that enhances their preparedness and response capabilities. The company offers a platform with high-resolution weather and fuel data that integrates seamlessly into existing workflows. The business model revolves around a subscription-based service, where clients pay for access to the latest data from multiple models, which can be exported for analysis and forecasting. In October 2024, the company joined the 2-year programme of the Dutch business incubation centre of the European Space Agency, ESA BIC Noordwijk. wildflyer.co
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