As far as anyone on the ground could tell, the blaze at a Los Angeles County mini-mall was out. Visual inspections of the building’s flame-licked facade found no smoldering embers.
But, according to a firefighter specialist on site, thermal cameras on a drone hovering overhead caught what human eyes couldn’t see — several hotspots that could easily have erupted.
“We were able to tell our ladder pipe operation people to put a large amount of water in that area to get rid of those hotspots,” said Craig Little, firefighter specialist and public information officer at L.A. County Fire Department.
“We could easily have left the scene, and all of a sudden that facade could have cooked up,” he said. “Without the help of the drone and the thermal imaging camera, it could have rekindled.”
This is a small, relatively tame, example of a rising trend in both urban and wildland firefighting — the steady influx of drones, land-based robots, and autonomous technology.
Increasingly, fire departments use drones and bots to scout fires, probe dangerous areas, feed surveillance footage back to incident commanders, and locate victims on search-and-rescue missions.
While nobody sees drones and algorithms as an immediate substitute for conventional aircraft with human pilots, most agree this technology is another valuable tool in the toolbox, with potential to improve safety and reduce risk in firefighting operations around the world.
“I’m sure we’re going to probably be incorporating them a lot more,” said Little. “We really try and use them as much as we can …. L.A. County is so immense, it’s difficult to get anyplace quickly.”
The limitations of drone technology are notable and pronounced—including, but not limited to, small operating windows due to tiny battery life, and the inability to carry large loads of water, flame retardant, equipment, or personnel.
Still, several private companies and firefighting agencies are drawn to drones’ ability to deploy quickly, fly high above congested airspace, deliver small equipment like hoses and saws, dump accelerant to contain wildfires, and feed video and other data back to incident commanders.
“We’re really excited about it,” said Tim Stinson, general manager at Stinson Aerial Services, a Canada-based helicopter and drone operator that works with wildfire agencies in Alberta and British Columbia.
“I believe there’s a place for both of us. We’re good at some of those spots that are maybe smaller, and not really a good use of helicopter time.”
DRONES IN THE FIELD
In Los Angeles County, DJI Mavic 3T and Matrice 350 RTK enterprise drones frequently deploy to large fire events, including the recent Palisades fire that devastated affluent, densely-populated coastal neighborhoods.
“We have them flying around, just for hotspots [and] ash pits, so our crews could mop up a little better,” said Little.
“We also fly mapping missions after fire incidents, as well as flooding and mud and debris flow incidents — they kind of go hand-in-hand, sometimes.”
The New York Fire Department (FDNY) has also used drones and robotics since 2014, with a dedicated unit that reportedly now includes four officers and 12 drone pilots.
“[They’re] an essential part of the technology that we use in all emergencies, especially at fire scenes,” robotics unit leader Mike Leo told reporters at an April press conference.
The U.S. Forest Service has a growing unmanned aircraft system (UAS) program, using small ANAFI “Parrot” drones to scout for hotspots, and the much larger and more sophisticated Alta X UAS to drop small aerial ignition spheres to burn out hard-to-reach fire areas.
“Over the last few years, UAS have become the go-to tool to protect firefighters and communities in many situations,” said Michael Spink, zone aviation officer for three national forests in Colorado, in a statement.
“UAS are important on fires because they reduce exposure of aircrews to high-risk missions.”
In the private sector, several firefighting operators rely on drones for a bird’s-eye view of fire sites and to deploy small-scale water or flame retardant drops. Drone manufacturers like JOUAV in China, Volatus Aerospace and Draganfly in Canada, Ascent AeroSystems (a Robinson Helicopter company) and several others, make UAS well-suited for the firefighting sector.
“Our unmanned aircraft systems are able to fly in conditions that would be considered unsafe for many other types of aircraft, manned or unmanned” said Peter Fuchs, Ascent AeroSystems co-founder and president. “We excel where other UAS companies falter, especially in the face of high, gusting winds, heavy rain and extreme heat.
“Firefighting crews often face these kinds of extreme conditions in the field, and with Ascent’s rugged, aircraft-grade platforms, we’re able to reliably deploy when other aircraft cannot, delivering actionable data when it is needed most. Knowing more, and knowing it faster, allows crews to deploy sooner and more efficiently, which ultimately allows firefighters to save more property and more people.”
Rotor Technologies has also eyed firefighting as an application for its R550X uncrewed helicopter (a modified Robinson R44 Raven II), along with the tech start-up Rain, which has partnered with Sikorsky to demonstrate autonomous fire suppression. operations on an optionally-piloted UH-60 Black Hawk
At Volatus, the potential of remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPAS, another drone synonym) is viewed with staunch enthusiasm.
“Future forward, we will start to see larger RPAS similar in size and capabilities to existing helicopter models that will either be developed or modified to be pilotless, as there is demand in multiple markets and industries for these systems, especially as the demand for pilots exceeds their availability leading to aircrew shortages,” said Walter Weselowski, who leads the company’s wildfire operations unit.
“In some wildfire activities, we will never see the removal of the pilot from the aircraft or helicopter, but the evolution of RPAS and related technologies will prove to be a scalable force multiplier on the fire line.”
HELICOPTERS STILL NEEDED
Naturally, there are skeptics. Along with the tech-utopian thinking that wafts out of Silicon Valley, some see autonomous aircraft as a solution in search of a problem.
At California-based Coulson Aviation USA, one of the world’s largest private aerial firefighting companies, there’s resistance to the idea of displacing human pilots, and firm pushback on the idea that autonomous systems are safer than piloted aircraft.
“When you look at our crews, 50 percent are ex-military,” said Britton Coulson, the company’s president and chief operating officer.
“They’re proposing an extremely expensive tech package to replace veteran military or commercial pilots that can do that job better than any computer…. If there’s a UAV Black Hawk out there doing its own thing, trying to share airspace and dip sites without communication, flying in its own patterns, dropping [water] on fires where it thinks it should go, totally autonomous, there’s no way we could do that safely and be up there with it.
“Don’t get me wrong, I think there’s a place for autonomous aircraft, but I don’t think it’s in low-level firebombing aircraft.”
The relatively tiny carrying capacities of existing drones are another practical concern. Coulson argues small water drops wouldn’t add value to ground firefighters.
“Helicopters can fight fire safely,” he said, referencing the industry’s long track record. “To go convolute the airspace with a bunch of drones that don’t even pack as much as a small helicopter and bog the system down… The argument we have is, what problem are you trying to solve? If we saw hundreds of very light helicopters out on fires and everyone loved them, I could see the push, but personally I have never had any agency ask us to replace one of our S-61s with 14 R22s.”
Drone proponents argue autonomous systems would improve safety because they don’t require aircrews — nobody is required to physically fly into dangerous airspace.
They also point to a dwindling supply of well-qualified, long-tenured pilots. Still, the helicopter and fixed-wing industry has decades of experience that some stakeholders see as proof the existing system is safe.
“Are we all pushing to have technology replace people?” said Coulson. “Why not focus on jobs that people can’t do?”
At Phoenix Heli-Flight in Fort McMurray, Alberta, helicopter pilots double as drone operators, using small-scale RPAS for everything from infrastructure inspections to aerial filming and search-and-rescue.
Still, the need for conventional aircraft is expected to remain for the foreseeable future.
“The helicopter is such a flexible vehicle in the firefighting environment,” said Paul Spring, owner of Phoenix Heli-Flight.
“It’s logistics, it’s planning, it’s medevac, it’s search-and-rescue, it’s suppression, it’s resupply, and even when the fire’s all done, if they’re going to go replant and reclaim, helicopters are involved in tree planting and reclamation work and environmental studies.
“So there’s really nothing that they don’t do, whereas the drones are, I think, for the foreseeable future, are going to have some limited applications.”
While operating costs may be lower for unmanned systems, Spring noted the pace of change in technology makes obsolescence a major concern.
What you buy today in an industry that advances quickly may not be worth much in three years,” he said.
“But our industry has helicopters out there flying around that were built in the ’60s and ’70s. So, the technology is not [being] supplanted by something that’s better, cheaper, faster. It just doesn’t exist.”
FUTURE APPLICATIONS
To be fair, most drone proponents don’t see autonomous technology as a direct replacement for legacy aircraft. They’re meant to complement existing firefighting tools.
“We truly believe the helicopter market will be just fine; it will continue to grow,” said Alex Deslauriers, CEO of FireSwarm Solutions, a Canadian technology company developing an algorithm to direct autonomous heavy-lift firefighting drones carrying water in Bambi Buckets.
“We’re coming in essentially as an adjunct, or as a complementary solution, for nighttime and low-visibility suppression when the fire rank is usually lower, the temperature is lower, the relative humidity is higher, usually lower winds. Currently there are limited resources actioning fire during these times. For drones to operate in those environments is a much better idea than to try and have flight crews operating at night.”
FireSwarm is working with ACC Innovations, a Sweden-based manufacturer that makes heavy-lift drones that can carry about 90 US gallons (340 liters), with up to two hours of endurance via 220 horsepower propulsion systems, said Deslauriers.
“We are creating the Swarm algorithm that allows UAS to fly automatically and autonomously, allowing our proprietary fire mission kit, installed on heavy-lift drones, to give instructions to the autopilot, enabling autonomous response.
FireSwarm aims to test its system in 2026, and said it has lined up at least two clients who work with wildfire agencies in Ontario and British Columbia. The algorithm is designed to continuously improve as it consumes more data from firefighting missions. The company has attracted loads of media attention, but its ultimate vision will take several years to realize.
“Initially, we will be automating multiple drones to be flying in a daisy chain to bring water from a lake to a pumpkin tank and longlining equipment from A to B and providing after-fire mop up support,” said Deslauriers. “In time, our swarm algorithm will be used for more complex active fire suppression missions.”
“As our product evolves, the degree of sophistication will allow for autonomous and continuous water pickup and drop-off on spot fires and on fire perimeters. But we’re talking about an evolution over a number of years.”
Another wrinkle in the fabric of autonomous firefighting is the rise of eVTOLs, with companies like EHang developing fire-specific models aimed at quashing urban blazes. There’s a great deal of buzz about this technology, tempered with realism and pragmatic resistance.
“Helicopters and aircraft have their limitations,” said Deslauriers. “Drones also have their limitations, and we, at FireSwarm, are interested in filling in well accepted gaps in the industry.”
“Field deployable heavy-lift drones are becoming available, and with the right level of automation, we can bring a powerful tool to the front lines. I’m really excited to be part of this evolution in aviation.”