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As wildfires have been multiplying over recent years and the trend is likely to continue in that direction, new technologies to combat fire are being invented, and two students at George Mason University are at the forefront of the trend.
The students, Seth Robertson and Viet Tran, created a device that sends loud noises toward the flames. "At the right frequency, the fire simply dies out," the BBC Science Focus magazine notes.
The pressure waves coming from the device cut off the oxygen supply to the fire.
Though their invention has not yet been tested on large fires, the students are confident their technology works. "I'd like to see this applied to swarm robotics where it could be attached to a drone and that would be applied to forest fires or even building fires," one of the two students said in a video interview.
Source: BBC Science Focus, Issue 285, September 2015, YouTube