How Drones—and Their Young Handlers—Are Changing the Future of Firefighting
How Drones—and Their Young Handlers—Are Changing the Future of Firefighting
12 November 2018
Published by https://www.popularmechanics.com/
USA – In August, during the Carr Fire—one of northern California’s largest wildfires this year, which the Menlo Park Fire District, from the heart of Silicon Valley, helped fight—Jack McCandless managed to get a piece of drone-detection equipment hooked up to a statewide command center. A specialist with the police department had been unable to figure it out for a month; McCandless got it up and running within a few minutes. “Now we’re getting calls from members of the statewide system: ‘Oh, this is great, how did you make that work?’ ” battalion chief Tom Calvert says. “It was just having Jack.”
“Drones are a cutting-edge technology, so there’s a lot of bugs,” McCandless says. “I help smooth that out. Firefighters expect it to work the first time, every time.” The nineteen-year-old, a paid intern and drone technician, has been working with the fire district for three years. He was introduced to Calvert by a mutual friend, just as MPFD was getting its drone program going. “At the time, he was working out at NASA Ames for a company that does satellite stuff,” Calvert says. “He was all of sixteen.”
The Menlo Park drone program got started in April 2014, after Calvert saw a drone at another firefighter’s bachelor party and realized it would be an important tool for emergency workers. Drones outfitted with cameras help firefighters get a better idea of the scope and damage to the surrounding area or perform search-and-rescue operations. Today, MPFD personnel are in demand as experts on integrating technology into fire response. And despite (or maybe because of) his youth, McCandless is a crucial part of the program, which includes a fleet of fourteen DJI drones of various sizes and capabilities. He has an intuitive ability for getting the drones to cooperate and interconnect with other firefighting tech, and he also fabricates custom accessories for the MPFD drones from his home workshop, in a role Calvert says is “basically research and development.” He’s added mounts for devices like gas meters and Geiger counters. He’s currently testing a mechanism that could throw life preservers or lifelines during water rescues.
“We’re using this technology in a way that has never been used in our industry, in a way it wasn’t intended to be used,” Calvert says. “That’s where Jack is very helpful. He’s an expert at this stuff. We compare him a lot to Q in the James Bond films, who makes all the gadgets. That’s what Jack is for us.”
How drones could change the future of fire response
Fifty years ago, flashover—the point at which a room gets so hot its contents ignite, engulfing anyone inside—took twenty to thirty minutes. But changes in home design and the increased use of synthetic materials have dropped it to fewer than five minutes. The average arrival time for firefighters is six and a half. But a new set of technologically enhanced protocols—some already rolling out, others not far off—will help firefighters deploy more efficiently.
