Due to rising global temperatures from climate change, wildfires have now become ever more frequent and devastating in Europe. A particular strategy for wildfire mitigation is containment, where a barrier is created to prevent the spread of a wildfire without necessarily actively suppressing it. To this end, aerogel emerges as a novel and high-performance material for such barriers given its lightweight and extremely insulating properties. AeroShield, a system consisting of a swarm of autonomous UAVs to contain wildfires by deploying aerogel blanket barriers, is a solution to leverage aerogels’ properties for a rapid response to spreading wildfires. Additionally, given the extremely hydrophobic and equally lipophilic characteristics of aerogel, the same system can be used in an entirely different market: oil spill absorption and containment. The system uses fixed wing VTOL UAVs with a span of 3 meters, which deploy the aerogel in blanket form. It can operate in temperatures up to 140 degrees celsius and 30 km/h wind speeds. The deployment rate for a 3 meter wide fire break is 24 meters per hour, and it is capable of absorbing 950 kg of oil per hour.