India
oi-Pankaj Mishra
The fire at the Central Ammunition Depot in Pulgaon, Maharashtra, began at about 1.30 a.m. on 31 May 2016. By the time it was out, 16 people were dead: two officers, one jawan and 13 civilian firefighters. The Ministry of Defence said the fire had been confined to one shed holding “highly sensitive ammunition”. An air station keeps the same volatile materials inside its perimeter. Officials describe the FF Bot, an iDEX-winning firefighting robot made by Swadeshi Empresa Private Limited in Changodar, near Ahmedabad, as one tool procured to fight fires in those zones so bases can fly again after a strike.
Three zones, three failure modes
Developed by Swadeshi Empresa, the iDEX-winning FF Bot firefighting robot is designed for hazardous air base zones like ammunition stores and hangars, following the 2016 Pulgaon fire’s 16 fatalities, and was tested in February 2026 at Pokhran’s Vayu Shakti exercise.
An air base has three zones where fire does the most damage: the fuel farm, the hangar line and the ammunition store. Each fails in its own way.
The international Jet A-1 specification sets a minimum flash point of 38°C, the temperature at which the fuel gives off vapour that can ignite. On 12 May 2026, Barmer in western Rajasthan recorded 48.3°C, according to India Meteorological Department figures, roughly ten degrees above that threshold. Flash point applies to the fuel itself, not the surrounding air, and stored fuel often runs cooler than ambient. But in that kind of heat the margin narrows, and fuel spilled in a thin layer can warm quickly toward air temperature.
Water does not extinguish a bulk aviation fuel fire, so crews must blanket the liquid surface with foam to cut off oxygen. That is the job the FF Bot’s aqua-foam jet is built for, with its thermal cameras locating hotspots through smoke while operators stay outside the hazard radius.
The hangar line
NFPA 409, the US standard on aircraft hangars, divides hangars into four groups by size and construction and sets fire protection rules for each. The larger groups require closed-head foam-water sprinkler systems, and every group requires floor drainage to handle fuel spills. Military hangar protection standards are not public, so NFPA 409 is cited here as an engineering benchmark.
A hangar fire is an aviation fuel fire inside a building that also holds aircraft. NFPA 409 is explicit about where its protection ends: it covers the construction and fire protection of the hangar building, and sets no protection goals for the aircraft parked inside. That gap is where an unmanned vehicle has a use. It can enter a smoke-filled hangar, locate hotspots with its optical and thermal cameras and apply foam, without sending crews into a building full of fuel and aircraft.
The ammunition store
Pulgaon shows what the third zone costs when human crews are sent in. The depot covers more than 7,000 acres. Lt Gen Ranbir Singh said the firefighting response followed “laid down procedures”, under which firefighters engage a munitions fire only if it stays confined to a single shed. Besides the 16 dead, two officers and 15 other personnel were injured, and more than 1,000 villagers were evacuated.
A robot changes the arithmetic of that rule. Because it can drag a charged hose and be controlled from outside the hazard radius, a station could begin attacking a munitions fire without putting people beside the shed.
Why the first hour decides it
Nagpur fire officer Ramesh Barde said the fire broke out at 1.30 a.m., the nearest outside engines arrived by 2.30 a.m., and ten engines worked until 6.15 a.m. to bring it under control. That is an hour between ignition and outside help. On an air base, that hour belongs to the station’s own crew, and whatever they can do from a distance, without putting people next to munitions that may detonate, changes who is exposed.
Where the robot fits
Crash fire tenders are an airfield’s standard manned vehicles for runway accidents. The FF Bot is an unmanned ground vehicle built to go ahead of human crews into places where entry is unsafe: ammunition depots, hangars and fuel storage areas. It was tested in February at Vayu Shakti 2026 in Pokhran, in debris and fire scenarios, on uneven terrain and in low visibility, with operators controlling it from outside the hazard radius.
Swadeshi Empresa has worked in fire suppression and water-mist systems for about four decades and has built firefighting robots since 2017. The FF Bot has a stainless steel body, built-in cooling and six powered wheels with suspension. It carries an aqua-foam jet, a fog water monitor, and optical and thermal cameras that locate hotspots through smoke. It can drag a charged hose or tow up to 5 tonnes. Officials also cite civilian uses at power stations, airports, fuel storage sites and disaster response, and say the robot was earlier deployed at a major fire at the Visakhapatnam refinery.
A Comptroller and Auditor General report had flagged risks in ammunition storage and handling in May 2015, a year before Pulgaon. On the hangar line, meanwhile, NFPA 409’s scope is unchanged: fixed systems are designed to save the hangar building, with no protection guarantee for the aircraft inside.
