Drone for brushfire spotting?

[txdon]

Robert, With the distance in-between station out here and the cost of a drone there will be a launch by command hopefully within 30 minutes of first arrival fire trucks. So training and observational experience will still be vital. If the fire is too small or too large (like the Bastrop fire, thousands of acres, winds 50 mph) the drone would not be launched. It would be perfect for the 5 to 500 acre acre fires in thick brush.

Mike, that site is interesting I will have to investigate it more, thanks. It looks like they could answer a lot of my questions about wind.

Aaron, the winds that the fire creates, as I see it, would be the biggest problem. I hope some FD figures out if drone spotting is feasible or a waste of resources.

 

[aczlan]

Aaron, the winds that the fire creates, as I see it, would be the biggest problem. I hope some FD figures out if drone spotting is feasible or a waste of resources.

I think that a heavier UAV (ie: a fixed wing plane type UAV with at least a 6' wingspan) would handle wind better than a mini one, perhaps something like this: 98" 4-Ch Brushless RC UAV/Drone Aircraft * Build & Maiden Flight * - YouTube

Aaron Z

 

[boggen]

camera is going to play roll in overall weight. a larger unit, with bigger engine and fuel supply, would better offset camera weight.

trying to get a small little unit to fly any sort of distance..... plus place to land, etc... let alone place to take off.

if government has these high priced dollar drones already, why not just "rent" per say. county or state gov, renting from fed / military. to allow drones to be ran through given areas.

ya wanting to pin point the fire line i would assume, and then anything within possible nearby path/s of fire (accounting for wind). that could feed the fire.

get a military drone setup, to take pictures of areas that may be hot spots. and as needed, allow fire department head quarters to get images off of the drone.

as much as i dislike idea of some drone or plane or helicopter taking pictures, say day or 2 before a fire, to help identify possibly problem spots for fires, or prep work for in case a fire happens. and these pictures / video. taking real time video / pictures with folks consent, but really. for a township, to county, to a state, or specific coordinates on a map, to give areas. that are more likely prone areas for fires. *shrugs*

seriously, get some contract going, so fire fighters, could punch in some GPS coordinates. and pull pictures off of some computer database. and display things on a screen right in the truck. heck "google maps" and turn to what is it "earth view" but setup for what ever is needed for more real time pictures that were recently taken.

 

[pwright]

I have a DJI Innovations Phantom which has a pretty decent range and I use it with a camera to take aerial video and photos. I haven't tried it in any winds more than say 10 mph. Heavy winds would certainly eat in to flight time and make landings tricky. There are a number of video systems that allow you to get a live video feed from the drone.

This is the drone:

Phantom Drone Quadcopter

Here are some videos I've shot just piddling around with it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diYqNiTEH2I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRfmCQljPyM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZHGeTkeKos

Here is an example from a FPV system on a Phantom where the guy flew it 1.4km away.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6ekn29NYrE

 

[KYDan]

Small relatively inexpensive drones are worthless for this situation, at best you could watch the fire spread from above. You would be dollars ahead to have your local fire department standby with a tanker truck. I assume from reading your posts that you are in a relatively remote area. RC type drones take a lot of input to fly and trying to view a video while manipulating the drone would result in the drone crashing and possibly creating its own fire from fuel on a hot engine. Battery operated craft take too much power with current technology to be of any use, the flight time is too short even with lithium ion power packs. I am getting ready to burn a debris pile that I have created. We have no burn ordinances from 6 AM until 6 PM and we are required to notify the county fire department prior to the burn so if they receive a call about the smoke. I keep a cell phone with me and the FD (not 911) on speed dial so I can call them if it starts getting out of hand. The intent here is to call them prior to it becoming an emergency situation.

 

[txdon]

KYDan, I am the local VFD and we got called out after it got out of control. This was a brush fire that was thought to be out two weeks earlier. I have a problem with anyone wanting to call the VFD to standby while they burn. If the land owner has any thought that it might get out of control they should not burn. If the VFD is standing by they are taking all the liability. I do not volunteer my services to put myself liable. They do have people who are heavily insured to do control burns they are not VFDs.

 

[KYDan]

The volunteer fire departments here are mostly special districts and a defacto unit of local government which shields them from most liability aside from gross negligence. I don't know anything about Texas statutes, therefore, I can't really comment on the liability there. I am a pilot and I do fly RC's so I have some knowledge of the worthlessness of commercially available drones for an application such as this. You might want to check with an attorney about a liability waiver in these situations. And yes, patience and waiting for the optimal time to burn brush is the best recourse, but there is always a chance of a fire getting out of control even then. It is hard to imagine that a state would not limit the liability of a volunteer public servant in these situations.

 

[txdon]

Our VFD was started by private donations 20 years ago and is still operating with donations. The local Government has no control or say in anything we do and we have no shields from them that I know of. I'm sure the owner would sign the liability waiver but would his neighbors? I agree with you the safest burn would be to have a truck stand by by at each burn. But then we would have to buy liability insurance and with the number of burns out here we would have to pay someone to stay for hours while the logs burned. I just got back from a structure fire, mutual aid, we had a total of 2 firefighters from our station, me being one. That's 3 fire calls in nine days. On the way to the structural fire we passed three brush pile fires.
Even if we were protected by the state, and I don't think we would be if we started the fire or assisted in any way, I would question any request to babysit a control burn. Basically - That's not our job and I can not depend on the government for any shielding.

 

[pwright]

RC type drones take a lot of input to fly and trying to view a video while manipulating the drone would result in the drone crashing and possibly creating its own fire from fuel on a hot engine.

You do realize that drones that are flown more than a rocks throw away from the controller are done so using video links and/or pre-programmed flight paths using GPS?

Now it is true that the cheap quadcopter type drones such as my Phantom are only good for 15-20 minutes of flight time depending on configuration but more serious drones like the RQ-11 Raven (battery powered) are capable of more than an hour of flight. We fly a lot of drones out here at White Sands Missile Range and they are much better than you think they are.

 

[pwright]

Here is a video interview with the DJI Innovations guy where they talk about the Australian Fire Dept. using the Phantoms to check out burn areas. The link is cued to the relevant section.

DJI Phantom - YouTube