Project Summary: Wildfires and other natural disasters in rural regions create unique transportation challenges that conventional emergency response systems are not designed to solve. When roads are blocked by debris, vehicle access becomes unsafe, and communications collapse, rural communities become unreachable. This project pilots a full-scale off-road autonomous vehicle (AV) platform integrated with a deployable soft robotic communication node, engineered for post-disaster access in unstructured, communications-denied rural terrain. Activities include: (1) co-design of post-wildfire AV deployment scenarios with emergency managers; (2) controlled testing and demonstration at the Clemson ICAR; and (3) synthesis of testing data into a transferable scenario library and technical gap report. The primary deliverable is a publicly archived demonstration of the platform navigating a simulated post-wildfire obstacle course and autonomously establishing emergency wireless coverage.