As more fire departments turn to using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for surveillance over fire scenes and search-and-rescue tasks, they are faced with how they deploy the drones. There is a growing trend around the country of integrating a drone or multiple drones on responding fire vehicles so they can quickly be fielded to provide an incident commander (IC) with a very fast and informative eye in the sky.
Michael Leo, captain of the Robotics and Drone Unit for the Fire Department of New York (FDNY), says FDNY flies both tethered and free-flying (patrol-controlled) drones on various department vehicles. Leo says FDNY’s Fotokite tethered drones can be found on sliding trays in compartments on pumpers and on a pickup truck with a special body where the top opens to deploy the Fotokite.
“We also fly five different patrol-controlled drones from our Command Tactical Unit CT-1,” Leo says. “The drones are in Pelican cases and the pilots on scene match the drone to the mission. We recently had a five-alarm fire on the Brooklyn waterfront where we used three drones, a DJI Matrice 300 that carries spotlights where we were able to light up the roof, and a DJI Matrice 30 that gave incident commanders great situational awareness and allowed the placement of aerial ladders. We also had a drone over the water that broadcast to a monitor on a fireboat to help with proper placement of its fire stream.”
Chris Martorana, director of marketing and business development for Fotokite US LLC, notes that Fotokite’s tethered drones have a 150-foot ceiling; can fly for an unlimited period; and, when mounted on a vehicle’s roof, they have the advantage of speed of deployment.
Mike Duran, chief of the Phoenix (AZ) Fire Department, says Phoenix uses both tethered drones placed on command vehicles around the city and patrol-controlled drones deployed from a Chevy Sprinter van. “The dedicated drone van is operated by a pilot and observer who can deploy drones for a variety of scenarios such as structure fires, wildland fires, mountain rescues, hazmat incidents, and urban search and rescue (USAR) situations,” Duran points out.
1 FDNY ICs check the imaging from a Fotokite drone tethered at the scene of a multialarm structure fire. (Photo 1 courtesy of the Fire Department of New York.)
2 A Fotokite tethered drone deploys out of a clamshell case on top of a command vehicle. (Photo 2 courtesy of Fotokite USA LLC.)
Daniel Cheatham, Phoenix Fire’s deputy chief and unmanned aerial systems (UAS) program manager, notes that the Sprinter van has two mobile workstations in the back that can create maps to be shared with ICs as well as a large monitor for viewing on scene. Cheatham says the van carries a DJI Mavic M3 and Matrice M30 and M300 drones,that operate using DroneSense software as well as a small DJI Avata drone that can be flown inside buildings, in confined spaces, in collapses and trench rescues, or at hazmat scenes. He adds that the drones also are useful in mapping missions for fire prevention and inspections, communications, and public affairs functions.
Katey Pratt, dispatch training supervisor for South Metro (CO) Fire Rescue Emergency Communications, says the department runs its drones out of four vehicles—a Dodge RAM 5500 pickup with a DJI M30 and M300 onboard; a Ford F-150 pickup with a M30 and radio equipment on a slide-out at the back; and two Chevy Tahoe SUVs with slide-out trays at the rear, one carrying a M30 and the other a Mavic 3.
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