Canadian drone hardware, service, and training company Volatus Aerospace has announced the addition of two new specialized, certification-required activities to its broadening menu, notably the ability to provide aerial tech for use in battling the nation’s proliferating wildfires.
Volatus has been at work scaling both the range of services it offers customers, and its geographic reach through both organic diversification and acquisitions of smaller firms excelling in various drone sector activities. The most recent move in the former category came this week with the Toronto-based company saying it had obtained certification required to provide aerial sensor support to wildfire extinction efforts.
Read: Volatus, Synergy pair for drone inspections of oil and gas infrastructure
That Volatus qualification comes with its passages of the Hinton GRID Testing process, which the Wildfire Service unit in Alberta uses to vet prospective partners in battling blazes using infrared data feeds from drones.
Infared imaging provides essential information to firefighters on the ground for assessing critical areas, detecting hot spots, and ensuring fires are fully extinguished and no longer threats of reigniting.
Hinton GRID Testing is designed to shift out drone operators whose skill, UAVs, and onboard infrared tech meet criteria on target sensitivity, accuracy, and data meeting the needs of units battling wildfires from those that don’t.
Though that specific certification is intended for application in Alberta – whose rate of fires has not only risen, but increasingly puts the ground assets of its giant energy sector at risk – it is recognized as a quasi-national norm by other provinces. Obtaining it therefore sets up Volatus to quickly broaden its drone activity fighting wildfires across Canada.
Its approval by Alberta authorities to fly those missions follows the nationwide green light Volatus received May 3 to fly beyond visual line of sight and above 400 feet in support of fire suppression agencies across Canada. The pair of qualifications place the company as a potential leader in battling the country’s wildfire scourge.
“Although many drone pilots are wanting to help with wildfire suppression, safely flying a drone in complex wildfire environments while collecting accurate and reliable hotspot data is a skill requiring specific knowledge, qualifications, and experience,” said Walter Weselowski, Volatus team lead of special flight ops, whose personal certification and experience in deployment of UAVs to battle wildfires is over a decade deep.“
Read: Volatus gets special Transport Canada BVLOS drone certification
Its approval to assist combatting wildfires in Alberta came less than a week after Volatus announced it had received special authority from Canada’s regulator to operate heavy crop-spraying drones weighing over 25 kg anywhere in the country. That specialized but restricted activity serves to further broaden the company’s service palette to prospective customers.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
Comments