Fire Suppression Via Unmanned Aircraft
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| Figure 1: Fire Suppression drone |
A New Approach:
As a volunteer fire-fighter in my home town I have come across a few situations in the first-responder environment that felt overtly dangerous or helpless. My department does not currently have a bucket truck, so all of our view of the fire scene is from the ground level. Many times it is possible that having a higher vantage point on the scene could have helped us establish a perimeter better, or better understand the fire at hand. This is where UAS technology could greatly aid the average Fire department, as well as larger scale fire suppression efforts such as forest fires, such as those that threaten our National Parks.
Benefits:
There are many benefits that are easily apparent to using UAVs for fire suppression, but there are also many more benefits that would greatly aid first responders. A major benefit is the ability for real time video, as it allows for the vectoring of crews to hot spot areas of fire that are not visible from the ground. For wild fires this would also aid in helping aircraft drop loads of water on fire, as they would be more easily be able to vector towards fires by having more location information.
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| Figure 2: Infrared footage of a forest fire |
Having live feed as other functions to aid in suppression, depending on the sensor attached to the UAV in use. Having a multi-spectral camera, or IR sensor can help find hot spot in the fire, or help locate missing persons, see figure 2.
If you combine these sensor functionalities with computer software, or possibly artificial intelligence in the near future, operations gain many more functions. For example, using machine learning to find missing persons based on their known clothing articles or identifying features.
Advantages Over Manned Aircraft:
There are many pros to using UAS over manned aircraft, shown bellow is a bulleted list of some of these benefits:
- Lower cost than manned aircraft, especially is using smaller commercial UAVs rather than large UAVs.
- Can gather data quickly which can then be used by analysts.
- Can operate in dangerous areas, such as in areas that are very smoky, which would be dangerous to manned aircraft.
- Sensors function better than human observation, as they see in high resolution, multi-spectral data, and can geo-reference data.
- Can function as spotter aircraft at night, since manned spotter aircraft do not fly at night.
- By using flight planning software, UAVs can gather data continuously, more so if multiple vehicles are used.
Direct Action:
While manned aircraft are often used for forest fires, structure fires typically do not involve aircraft. However, if UAVs such as the one by DJI shown in figure 1 become more commonplace, they could be used in a more direct action. Instead of getting up close and personal with a fire on a bucket truck, a UAV could be used from a tethered position on a truck to fight fires directly. Online there are examples of this strategy being used to fight fires, though it may be some time before this is commonplace even in cities.
Drawbacks:
As with most new technologies, there are going to be some hiccups when using this new system. A glaring issue at the start is training individuals to use these new tactics. Do you train current first responders to use the aircraft, or do you have pilots trained in fire suppression? Another drawback is the limited flight capacity of current UAV technology, as their flight time may not be long enough to fully extinguish a fire. A drawback that is not going to go away quickly is the legal process of establishing a permanent UAS fire suppression legislative authority. In a previous blog I discussed some of the current UAS and first responder interactions, but most are on a state level and do not necessarily discuss the use of UAVs in fire suppression.
To Conclude:
Using unmanned aerial systems for fire suppression has many benefits for both small and large departments. The wide variety of utilities that UAVs would supplement to fire suppression would be greatly beneficial to improving safety. Taking the human factor out of dangerous situations would hopefully lead to a statistical decrease in injury, and hopefully provide a safer future for first responders.
References:
https://www.mdpi.com/2504-446X/3/1/17/pdf-vor
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