Even though the FAA recently put out a warning to not weaponize your drones, there are situations when a drone with self-igniting eggs or flame-throwers can help save lives. Check out this article by The Guardian about these ‘dragon’ drones.
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.
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.
We wrote about the Paradise Camp Fire before. In a matter of two days, 16 drone teams mapped the entire Paradise Camp Fire area. If that sounds impressive, it is because it is! Not only do you have the logistics of 16 drone teams to manage, think about the thousands and thousands of aerial photos that need to be collected, uploaded, processed, stitched and made available for the emergency responders and the general public. NBC has a great piece on this large-scale drone operation that also involved DroneDeploy and DJI. Jump in for more.
CNN reports the Camp Fire isn’t even halfway done burning. Meanwhile, drone teams are already deployed after the Camp Fire in Paradise, CA, in what is called the largest UAV disaster response effort in the history of California. As we have seen with earlier wildfires, flooding, and hurricanes, drones can help to quickly map and visualize disaster-struck areas and provide assistance during the recovery.
Authorities say that a drone crash sparked a wildfire northwest of Flagstaff, Ariz. More than 300 acres were burned before the fire was contained late Tuesday afternoon. Visibility was limited as a result of the smoke produced by the burning grasslands.
Aerial firefighting operations battling Bear Fire in Santa Cruz Mountains, were briefly suspended after a drone was seen flying in the area. The crucial firefighting operations in the Santa Cruz Mountains were stopped around 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday earlier this week, as officials worked to remove a drone from the area, said Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office officials.
The FAA said on Monday, that hobbyist drones are becoming a problem in the California wildfires that continue to burn. So far at least two drone incidents have been reported in which unauthorized amateur drones were interfering with firefighters.
Earlier last week in the Santa Rosa area, where the mail was still being delivered after the fires had gone through, there was a drone incursion reported. Last Sunday Cal Fire helicopters were halted in Petaluma after a drone had been spotted.
Even though most homes have completely burned to the ground and the homeowners have left, the mailman is still doing his rounds, as captured on video by drone pilot Douglas Thron. The almost eerie and apocalypse-like short film Thron uploaded to YouTube shows the extent of the devastation. Apart from the mailman doing his job, the streets show no sign of life. Houses are burned to the ground and skeletons of cars are still sitting in the driveways. Why would the USPS deliver mail to homes that no longer exist?
Drone footage just surfaced on Twitter showing the wildfires in Northern California that already have claimed one person’s life, injured many others and destroyed 1500 homes and businesses in what is called one of the worst firestorms in Northern California’s history. An estimated 20,000 people were forced to evacuate as roughly 14 wind-driven wildfires started on Monday. Collectively the fires cover an estimated 57,000 acres in the Napa, Sonoma and Yuba counties.