Instead Of Water, Military Drones Helping Fight Fire With Data

cbs2la ^ | December 9, 2017 at 12:10 am

[BenLurkin]

Firefighters have been working nonstop to put out multiple wildfires ravaging land and homes from the hills to the beaches of Southern California. High above the flames and smoke, heavy duty materiel is helping them better battle those blazes.

In a partnership between state fire protection agency CAL FIRE and the California Air National Guard, unmanned drones have been assisting firefighters by relaying information that those on the ground could not otherwise get.

The MQ-9 Reapers that were deployed this week have sensors that can see through smoke and feed back live video to the fire command.

“We can show [firefighters] where the fire’s moving or if the embers start flying four or five miles away,” drone pilot Col. Sean Navin told CBS2 News Friday. “They have literally real-time data, and they can start taking their limited resources and putting them where it counts most.”

The pilots were flying the drones above the Thomas Fire in Ventura County Friday, controlling the aircraft from an operating center in Riverside County.

They can fly twice as high as a CBS2 News chopper, and they are not as affected by winds at those altitudes.

[HighSierra5]

Every fire I have seen fought up here, they’ve used Broncos for surveillance. But whatever it takes, do it.

[Colorado Doug]

Data has never put out a fire and unfortunately virtually all research money goes into fire modeling. Of course it’s nice to know where a fire might be headed but it would be so much better to be able to put a fire out. There are modern technologies that could be used to actually extinguish fires but with the advent of eco-fires group-think, the powers that be are more interested in software than on the ground solutions. It’s been that way since Yellowstone and it needs to change.

[4Liberty]