As wildfire season blazes on in Washington state, a group of Boeing engineers have secured a patent for something called a "fire-retarding artillery shell."
The idea is to build a kind of missile filled with fire retardants that you could shot into a wildfire to try and stop it from spreading.
Joe Smillie is a spokesman for the state Department of Natural Resources, which is in charge of fighting wildfires around Washington. He said they usually use planes and helicopters to drop fire retardant around wildfires in the hopes of slowing them down.
"I kind of think of it like a paintbrush," Smillie said. "You're kind of laying this even coat across the trees or the grass."
He said a new device would have to be able to do that as well or better than the planes they use now. But Smillie also said the department welcomes new innovations.
"We're kind of greedy on that, I guess," he said. "It's just [we] always would like more: more planes, more helicopters, more boots, more tools."
According to the patent filing, the new device is designed to target fires faster and more precisely than planes.
Boeing said in a statement that securing a patent doesn't necessarily mean the company will develop the project in the near future.
