In a large-scale forest fire exercise the Bavarian State Forests provided significant support to the research project to develop a drone for early forest fire detection. The project, led by the Friedrich-Alexander University and the Fraunhofer Institute, led to the founding of the start-up company Evolonic. The innovative long-range drone, which is equipped with sensors and artificial intelligence, detects forest fires early and transmits the coordinates and aerial images to the operations management in real time.