Hanoi has seen a significant increase in both the number and severity of fires in recent years. From 2014 to 2023, statistics indicate that Hanoi experienced 4,459 fires, which led to 202 deaths and 271 injuries. Of these incidents, 52% occurred in residential houses or combined residential and business establishments. In 2023-2024 alone, Hanoi witnessed four devastating fires with significant human casualties:
+ On September 12th, 2023, a fire broke out in a mini apartment building in Khuong Dinh Ward, Thanh Xuan District, Hanoi. This building, housing 40 apartments and more than 150 residents, claimed 56 lives and completely destroyed all assets in the affected apartments.
+ On October 26th, 2023, a fire at a scrap-collecting house in Tu Hiep Commune, Thanh Tri District, Hanoi, resulted in the tragic death of a mother and her two children. The father was hospitalized in critical condition with severe burns.
+ On May 24th, 2024, a boarding house located on Trung Kinh Street, Cau Giay District, Hanoi, measuring 100 square meters across three floors with 12 rooms, caught fire, resulting in 14 deaths.
+ On June 16th, 2024, a six-story private house at 207 Dinh Cong Ha Street, Dinh Cong Ward, Hoang Mai District, Hanoi, burned down, killing four people, including a grandmother and her three grandchildren. Fires were mostly caused by electrical short circuits, often occurring at night, which made early detection and intervention challenging. As a result, fires escalated rapidly, causing significant damage. When fires were discovered, residents often struggled to escape, leading to loss of life. The aftermath of each fire extends beyond material damage, resulting in profound human tragedy. Most residents in mini apartments and boarding houses are students attending Hanoi’s universities or young families. Victims of house fires are predominantly elderly and children.
I was deeply haunted by the images on news websites and social media of parents rushing from all over the country to hospitals, anxiously awaiting news of their children, only to collapse in despair upon learning they had passed away—some even unrecognizable.
Faced with this grim reality, I conceived the idea of creating a robot capable of early fire detection, cutting power sources in case of electrical short circuits, alerting nearby residents, and extinguishing fires autonomously before human intervention is required. This robot aims to reduce fire spread risk and provide timely warnings for effective response.
I shared this idea with my cousin (a PhD candidate at LAAS - CNRS, France). With his support and encouragement, I formed a team of three members and began working on the project in August 2024.
After numerous adjustments, the team successfully conducted the robot’s trial run on Christmas Eve, December 24, 2024. The robot performed all its designated functions effectively. We do hope that in the near future, every house will have an automatic fire-fighting robot to extinguish any fire risk from the very first seconds and there will be no more death.