The Western United States is burning.

Not all at once, and not without warning. The fires that tear through California every year are the result of decades of overgrown forests, too dense, too dry, and increasingly combustible. The solution that forestry experts broadly agree on is thinning. Removing the excess brush and small trees that turn a manageable fire into an uncontrollable one.

The problem is scale. Forest thinning is slow, physical, dangerous work. There are not enough workers to do it at the pace the forests need.

Merritt Jenkins saw this and recognized something familiar.

He had spent years watching technology transform agriculture, the economics, the labor requirements, the scale of what a small team could accomplish. When he started looking at forestry he did not see the same adoption. The equipment was the same. The methods were largely unchanged. And the workforce was aging out with nobody coming in to replace them.

He co founded Kodama Systems to close that gap.

The company is doing two things at once. The first is turning heavy forestry equipment into semi autonomous and remotely operated machines, using satellite connectivity to allow operators to work from anywhere. A job that once required someone on site in a remote mountain location can now be managed from a distance, safely, at a fraction of the cost. Productivity gains of up to 300 percent.

The second is what happens to the waste.

When forests are thinned, the leftover biomass, branches, small logs, material too small to sell as timber, is typically piled and burned on site. That burning releases the carbon stored in the wood back into the atmosphere. Kodama is instead burying it in what they call wood vaults, sealed underground storage that holds the carbon for centuries rather than releasing it in an afternoon.

It is not a flashy idea. It is a quiet one. But the math behind it is significant.

Jenkins brought a background in robotics, a degree from Carnegie Mellon, and a previous company in agricultural technology. His co founder Matt Verminski helped build Amazon Robotics and holds 42 patents. Kodama is backed by Breakthrough Energy Ventures and raised a Series A in 2025.

The forests were always going to need help.

Kodama Systems is building the infrastructure to deliver it.