Reunite Program finds the missing with advanced search and rescue tech

Lee County Sheriffs Office announced it would eliminate, Project Lifesaver, which was a system that used radio frequencies to try to find people.

Their Reunite Program will now use infrared technology on drones and helicopters to help find missing people.”  Read More.

Do you have a story of drones coming to the rescue or assisting your agency? Please share in the comments.

Understanding How Law Enforcement, Firefighters, and Search & Rescue Teams are Using UAS

Commercial UAV News July 16, 2019 
Insights from the DJI Public Safety UAS Event hosted by Enterprise UAS

While public safety agencies in the United States began utilizing drones in 2013, you’d have been hard-pressed to find many organizations doing so in a major way. Part of that was due to the limitations of the technology, but payload advances that have allowed police and fire departments to do everything from remotely stream live images to utilize a thermal camera to get a heat signature of a roof have proven to be real game-changers. More and more local and state agencies are starting to adopt and utilize UAS technology, but it’s advocates like Los Angeles Fire Department Firefighter Derrick Ward that have helped these professionals truly understand what kind of increased situational awareness the technology can provide.  Read More;

Unmanned Aircraft Systems use on wildfires Miller Fire Wildfire

Miller Fire Wildfire News – 7/10/2019
Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) The National Interagency Fire Center is building an interagency fire Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) program comprised of agency personnel and private contractors. The use of UAS is one way fire managers are incorporating new technology to support fireline decisions. This allows important information to be gathered quickly without putting firefighters in aircraft. UAS are broke down into 4 types based on their capabilities.A type 1 UAS is the most capable and type 4 is the least complex but the most portable.

Agency personnel generally operate type 3 or type 4 UAS because they can be stored in a backpack and launched from the fireline. These smaller UAS operate at low altitudes, generally below 400 feet, have a battery life less than an hour, and must be operated within visual line of sight. If a fireline supervisor needs to get a better vantage point while on the line, they can launch these smaller UAS from their location and get the information back in real time. This also gives field personnel the opportunity to capture pictures of terrain and vegetation when scouting line. This information can be sent back to the incident command post for planning purposes.

Type 1and type 2 UAS are more complex systems that require more personnel and designated areas for launching. Flight crews for these larger systems can range from 3 to 9 or more crewmembers. Each of these personnel have important job responsibilities such as flying the aircraft, coordinating with ground and air resources, and interpreting data. These larger systems can fly to heights over 10,000 feet and operate for multiple hours. They can fly beyond visual line of sight and carry multiple cameras for mapping. On larger wildfires the Incident Management Team can utilize these larger “drones” for quicker turnaround times on infrared flights to identify heat along the fire perimeter.

The airspace above a wildland fire can be a complex environment with multiple fixed and rotor wing aircraft operating at different altitudes. Fire managers put a temporary flight restriction (TFR) over wildfires to maintain control of the aircraft within that space. In order to allow a UAS to climb through a complex airspace like this, fire managers use an area identified as a Launch Recovery Zone (LRZ). An LRZ is an area within the TFR that can be closed to other aircraft while the UAS ascends and descends. When an LRZ is “hot” no other aircraft can enter the space, once the UAS reaches its target altitude the LRZ is “cold” and other aircraft can fly through it again.

After landing, UAS data specialists support the operation by pulling the GPS data, photos and videos from the system to be interpreted and packaged for mapping. The data specialist can take pictures from the flight and georeference them on a map. This allows firefighters to get maps with updated aerial imagery to get an idea of burn severity or structures threatened. These larger drones also come with infrared (IR) cameras that can feed live IR information to the resources on the ground. This information allows firefighters to identify heat near the fireline so it can be suppressed before it escapes.

UAS operated by fire personnel are carefully coordinated with air and ground resources, it is important that the public remembers not to fly their own drones within the TFR of a wildfire. Individuals who are determined to have interfered with suppression efforts may be subject to civil penalties of up to $20,000 and potential criminal prosecution. Drone intrusions endanger the lives of firefighters, halt air operations, and impact the protection of values at risk.
If you fly, we can’t.

From: https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/article/6417/49578/

County in Sierra Finds Swiftwater Search and Rescue Uses for Drones

KOLOTV.com July 2, 2019

ALPINE COUNTY, CA (KOLO) Alpine County sits in a rugged corner of the Eastern Sierra just south of Lake Tahoe, barely 11 hundred residents and nearly 750 square miles of mountain and forest.

But it gets a lot of visitors, campers, hikers, kayakers, people just passing through. From time to time some get into trouble.

First responders are the small staff of the Alpine County Sheriff's Office and their search and rescue volunteers. Not a lot of manpower, but they have a powerful tool, the sheriff office's drone.

Their drone is equipped with camera and heat imaging, able to search from the air when those below can't.

"We use it during the hasty search period when we don't have other manned aircraft in the air space," says Deputy Sheriff Jake Krzaczek, "and we can also use it to search at night, which previously we were reluctant to do because it puts our volunteers in harm's way."

With the heat imaging camera, the drone operator can identify by sight and by body temperature whether he's found a lost hiker or a bear, deer or steer.

And once found and identified, the drone can carry a life saving payload.

"We can drop medical supplies. We can drop them food, water, a radio, extra clothing, anything they might need to keep them alive until we can get bodies on scene to get them out of from where they're at."

The sheriff's department and its volunteers keep finding new ways to use the drone. The latest stemmed from an incident involving a person trapped on the far side of a raging river. Standard procedure would be to throw them a rescue bag attached to a line.

"We finally had to put a rock in the bag itself to give it some weight to throw it and finally got it to him," recalls Krzaczek. "And I think everyone's shoulder hurt a little bit, so we thought, how can we make this easier? We had the payload capability in the drone and we did a dry run in the parking lot one day and thought this could work."

And so, a new use for the drone was developed. Now Krzaczek and his volunteers work it into their training routine. The exercise we witnessed was on a relatively placid spot on he west fork of the Carson River. Elsewhere the county's streams were what he described as "hairy."

"There's areas on the west fork and the east fork that are ripping right now where I wouldn't want to put my guys in the water if I didn't have to."

So imagine a kayaker or fisherman fallen into the icy water in the midst of rapids, either floating or clinging to a rock.

The drone drops the rescue line to him without endangering the volunteer.

So you can add swift water rescue to that growing list of uses for drones and that's not likely to be the end of it."

"It's incredible," says Krzaczek. "There's going to be so many uses for them in the next few years."

Wildwood Lifeguards Consider Using Drones to Help Save Lives

As technology keeps improving and as the Australians have shown us the benefits of drones, it is great to see more and more lifeguard agencies looking at drones as another tool in their toolbox.

Lifeguards in Wildwood, New Jersey, are considering using drones to help save lives and are putting the drone to the test.