This year’s fire season in California has started out with massive fires in Los Angeles and near San Francisco. PG&E’s aging transmission lines form a huge risk as failing equipment can potentially start wildfires as was the case last year. The Camp Fire in 2018 was started by a powerline that came down from a transmission tower after one of the hooks that hold up the lines broke. An article in the Wall Street Journal investigates the status of the PG&E towers and lines in California and uses drone footage to show the aging equipment.

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A drone has taken to the skies over what was once the Amazon rain forest to give us a glimpse of the damage left behind by the sweeping fires. The drone video gives us a limited look at the devastation, and what the animals will be forced to return to.

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Firefighters were forced to halt their fire fighting efforts due to a rogue drone flying above and around the Alaskan fire. Both the FAA and the local fire department have taken to social media to share their frustrations and concerns with rogue drones around fires.

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In Spain, researchers from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid work together with telecommunications corporation Telefonica, drone start-up Divisek Systems and drone operations company Dronitec to test the use of autonomous drones to fight wildfires. The drones to fight wildfires are part of a firefighting system that consists of a number of communication towers. Each of the towers is outfitted with a thermal camera and an autonomous drone that is stored in a special hangar.

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