Unmanned drones play vital role in fighting Alaskan forest fires
Unmanned drones play vital role in fighting Alaskan forest fires
13 August 2009
published by www.vancouversun.com
Canada — Unmanned aircraft aren’t just being used in Afghanistan to scan for military threats they’re now being used in Alaska to map another kind of danger.
For the first time, small drones are being flown through thick smoke over intense wildfires to map where fire lines are holding and where flames are spreading. And though they haven’t been used in British Columbia during this year’s catastrophic fire season, the team aiding in Alaska’s fire fight say they’d certainly consider helping if officials asked.
The small Insitu ScanEagle drones, operated by University of Alaska staff from the Poker Flat Research Range, a centre for Arctic space and atmospheric research, have been using infrared cameras attached to the planes to map Alaska’s Crazy Mountain Complex fires since Aug. 5.
The group received an emergency certificate of authorization from the Federal Aviation Administration after brutal fire conditions grounded manned fire service aircraft for three days.
The university is the first entity other than NASA or the U.S. Department of Defense to receive emergency clearance to fly unmanned aircraft beyond the line of sight in civil airspace.
Poker Flat optical science manager Don Hampton said the drones have a sunny future ahead of them in fighting forest fires.
“I think that niche is going to be pretty good because those helicopters really should be ferrying people back and forth . . . and taking buckets up and dropping water down,” said Hampton, who is one of the aircraft operators.
“The Alaska fire service is definitely looking at using us again. I think other places are really looking at it, too.”
Hampton said fire service officials were concerned the fire had breached a key fire line, and with planes grounded, someone would have had to slog across eight kilometres of tundra to verify the fear.
“The mantra for what we do is called ‘dull, dirty or dangerous.’ If it’s dangerous or dirty, obviously you don’t want to send manned pilots, and if it’s dull sometimes it makes sense to fly these things,” he said.
B.C. has had one of its worst forest fire seasons in history, with record heat and little rain growing the wildfires. Thousands of people have been evacuated this summer as flames encroached on communities throughout the province’s tinder-dry Interior.
Officials from the B.C. Ministry of Forests and Range could not be reached for comment on whether the province would consider using unmanned aircraft in the future.
The “glorified RC model plane,” has a three-metre wingspan, weighs about 15 kilograms and can fly for 20 to 22 hours.
“You can make that thing fly tracklines that a pilot would be completely bored out of his mind doing,” Hampton said.
On a regular fire, Hampton said the drones would fly from 2 a.m. until helicopters were able to take off around 9 a.m. The operators then update the fire service on overnight fire activity.
“You don’t actually have a joystick flying the plane. It’s on autopilot the whole time,” he said.
