Worldwide, there has been an increase in wildfires and a decrease in the number of firefighters, especially volunteers. Wildland fire activity has increased over the years and is often attributed to climate change with increased heat and decreased forested vegetation management. The National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) in Boise, Idaho, conducts daily incident reports for the USA. At the time of writing, they noted: “Nearly 22,000 wildland firefighters are assigned to wildfires nationwide, including 20 complex and six Type 1 incident management teams, 530 crews, 1,310 engines, numerous aviation resources, and four Modular Airborne Fire Fighting Systems, or MAFFS.” That data is just a snapshot in time. Over term, the volume of fires, firefighters, and land destruction has escalated. What can technology and solutions do to mitigate the danger to people, land, and wildlife through aerial firefighting techniques?

This article focuses on remotely piloted aircraft, software, and education in drone operations for firefighting from distinct sources. Remotely piloted technology in aerial firefighting can increase firefighters’ safety and provide better information for decision-making. But how far has it come, and where is it going with prescribed burns, water drops, personnel, and fire monitoring?

The US Forest Service defines an uncrewed aerial system (UAS) like this: “Collectively, a UAS consists of an aircraft platform, sensor and communication payloads, and the ground control segment. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) policy identifies ‘Unmanned Aircraft (UA) as “aircraft” flown by a “pilot” regardless of where the pilot is located’.”

Remote piloting for better data

Aerostar of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, remotely pilots uncrewed polyethylene high-altitude balloon systems in 50,000–150,000ft altitudes in the stratosphere.

Aerostar’s Lead Technical Program Manager, Mark Ketcham, has worked extensively with NASA and NIFC to help manage active wildfires and conduct scientific research using high-altitude balloons. Aerostar’s mission is to “connect, protect, and save lives”, and it works to solve challenges in aerospace and defense.

NIFC is getting actionable near-real-time data to end users in rugged terrain where traditional terrestrial LTE (cellular) data services are unavailable

Regarding wildfire management, Ketcham said that the greatest need of the NIFC “is getting actionable near-real-time data to end users in rugged terrain where traditional terrestrial LTE (cellular) data services are unavailable”.

Another company in this realm is FlySight, which offers data collection and exploitation for real-time enhanced situational awareness, mission planning, and debriefing platforms. FlySight Application Specialist Giacomo Fontanelli of Livorno, Italy, has been in the business for 10 years and said the primary mission of the company is to be “a leading provider of cutting-edge software solutions designed to provide the best support in decision-making, even for the most critical operations, primarily in the defense and security sector”. Its teams of engineers and scientists specialize in C4ISR (command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) systems and develops advanced software.

In the aerial firefighting space, “FlySight assists firefighting efforts through OPENSIGHT advanced technology solutions, specifically designed to enhance situational awareness and operational efficiency. Our expertise in airborne search and rescue (SAR) operations translates seamlessly to firefighting missions, where speed and accuracy are paramount.”

OPENSIGHT is FlySight’s flagship product, which “is an innovative geographical information system that combines advanced processing capabilities with augmented reality (AR) visualization for superior information dissemination. OPENSIGHT leverages artificial intelligence (AI) and AR technologies to extract and present insights from payloads on board unmanned systems, significantly improving operational efficiency and decision-making processes.” According to Fontanelli, it can be used to enhance situational awareness and comprehensive mission support.

Avion Robotic’s drone, Phoenix, is supplementing aerial firefighting directly with its ability to lift and drop water like a conventional crewed helicopter. Jan Fosen, Co-Founder and CEO of Avion Robotic, explained how they achieve this: “Phoenix takes 1,400kg of external load, so it can fly with the Bambi Buckets being used by helicopters today and pick up water from anywhere. There is no change in infrastructure. Since we engineer everything ourselves, we have the possibility to make changes to the frame, like tanks for water and fire retardant.”

Also, remote piloting is only possible with pilot training organizations like DelMar AeroEducation of Pendleton, Oregon. This organization trains UAS operators for industry and government, leveraging a test and training center at the Pendleton UAS Range (PUR). Students train at their location from around the country.

Increased safety for fire personnel through remote piloting

Jeremy Edwards, DelMar’s Site Manager, said that drones and remotely piloted systems keep first responders safe in hazardous environments like fire and smoke because they can stay with the aircraft longer and away from danger. He said drones can gather more data “to understand the problem better, thus creating a faster solution and hopefully putting the fire out sooner”.

Drones and remotely piloted systems keep first responders safe in hazardous environments like fire and smoke

Edwards said that the trajectory of remote piloting has increased dramatically since he entered the field in 2008. “The fastest progression has been the autopilots and the software to convert information. UAS has had a huge advantage in the military segment, offering live video feeds and keeping folks out of danger; there are many other ways to use a UAS and capture data to solve a known problem.” However, he cautioned that data collection is critical, but having staff who can read and interpret it is even more important. He also said that piloting UASs or drones has become significantly less costly, allowing increased prevalence for various applications, including in firefighting scenarios.

Edwards said remote piloting over a wildfire can be successful and cited an example from 2022. “In September 2022, [a California state agency] sent us to a wildfire to fly a vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft and provide real-time video feed and fire positions to the ground crew fighting the fire. They had access to live and historical videos to track the fire’s direction and speed. We were keeping the ground crew safe and providing a faster solution to extinguish the fire. We identified new hot spots as they appeared and cut the fire’s progression off by predicting the direction based on this data.”

Edwards added that there is demand for their education, and their parent company, DelMar Aerospace, utilizes their training “downrange” to support ongoing training efforts.

The development of drones for safety is a continuous concern. Fosen highlighted the

As well as monitoring fires and terrain, the sensors on drones also have the capacity to detect weather and other aircraft and vehicles, feeding back all this data to enhance operations

recent tragedies that are prompting further development in drone technologies: “We have seen from the Mediterranean area both last year and this year they have been losing helicopters and planes during wildfires, resulting in loss of human lives. Since a drone is uncrewed, the risk of human life lost on operations is eliminated.” As well as monitoring fires and terrain, the sensors on drones also have the capacity to detect weather and other aircraft and vehicles, and to see through smoke, which is a particular hazard for aerial firefighting, feeding back all this data to enhance operations. Fosen explained: “We have radars that can penetrate smoke with different frequencies on the radar. The Phoenix has two radar systems, and uses multiple beams to ‘see’ more things at the same time than commercially available radar. In addition to detecting weather, the system can simultaneously scan and receive radar returns from aircraft, ground vehicles, buildings and even people. On top of that, we have all the camera technology that adds to even better situational awareness.”

Fontanelli said they have seen impressive changes in UAS/drone use over the last decade. “These unmanned aerial vehicles, equipped with high-definition, infrared, and thermal cameras, have revolutionized aerial firefighting by being able to operate in conditions too dangerous for manned aircraft, such as during night operations or in heavy smoke. This capability enhances situational awareness and provides critical real-time data.”

Fontanelli added: “Our personnel deeply understand all the domains for which we implement custom applications; firefighting is no exception. OPENSIGHT is adaptable and customizable according to the functionalities and capabilities that are useful for the specific mission to cover the situation awareness needs specific to the client and end user. From its very first design, OPENSIGHT is modular and, with its open architecture, versatile across various platforms and domains and ready for easy integration into all systems, elevating every mission.”

Ketcham said the future of aerial firefighting will rely on uncrewed systems to cover vast areas and “higher levels of autonomy on stratospheric balloon platforms [that] will allow for a single operator to control a small fleet of balloons. One operator can monitor and update autopilot goals for four to 10 balloons.”

He also shared that Aerostar’s research into wildfire management had unexpected results. He was surprised to learn that improved communications and situational awareness are as important, if not more so, than new sensor data streams. This research was confirmed in subsequent conversations with the US National Interagency Fire Center.

Ketcham said: “A lot of sensor data from fires is already available but firefighters are unable to distribute and consume it fast enough before it becomes old and operationally irrelevant. Firefighters are interested in connecting to incident command using phones and established phone software applications like TAK and MS Teams.”

If an in-flight issue arises, it will escalate to a dedicated flight technician to diagnose and fix it to avoid excessive distraction to the fleet operator. Ketcham added that Aerostar trains its own balloon pilots as well as Department of Defense forces. These operators receive a ground school course to familiarize themselves with airspace regulations, and FAA communications/requirements.

Prescribed burns and water monitoring

Regarding prescribed burns, Edwards said: “If you have ever seen prescribed burns, the folks are using a flame thrower or a paintball sort of gun to shoot fire starters into the area. The folks are given an emergency blanket in case of the unimaginable.”

Unfortunately, these folks must imagine it to avoid becoming engulfed in the fire should the winds change or equipment malfunction. Edwards shared that using a drone is safer, and more efficient. “Using a drone to start these fires is much safer and keeps the folks out of the field, allowing more people to be on the line out of harm’s way.”

Overall improvement of fire monitoring

The Thunderhead Balloon System is Aerostar’s best product for firefighting applications. Its “persistence adds a new platform with new dimensions of capabilities that wildfire managers have never been able to utilize in the past”, Ketcham said.

However, he added that the best mechanism for aiding a wildfire is still being discussed. “We may want to launch balloons pre-emptively in seasonal high-risk fire areas looking for new fire starts and doing small fire remote sensing.” Aerostar could then navigate the Thunderhead balloon systems to a fire complex as tasked. According to the Aerostar website, they can deploy the Thunderhead balloons for tailored missions, including navigational capabilities, or as a satellite alternative.

Fontanelli said that with fire monitoring, the “Automatic Target Recognition module of OPENSIGHT represents a versatile and powerful tool for modern search and rescue and surveillance operations, combining advanced AI capabilities with flexible deployment options to meet the demands of dynamic operational environments. The ATR system maximizes targeting performance by leveraging state-of-the-art deep learning technologies, ensuring precise and efficient operations.”

He said the module can operate independently or as an integrated component of the OPENSIGHT Mission Console, which offers “operational flexibility, with the configurable open architecture that allows seamless incorporation of third-party or proprietary AI networks, ensuring extensive compatibility and adaptability to evolving operational needs.”

Fontanelli added: “Lives are on the line during firefighting missions, and OPENSIGHT’s technology is developed with this critical understanding.” He said that FlySight’s solutions help to locate and rescue people in “hostile environments, such as at sea, mountainous terrain, or disaster scenes like fires”. Overall, he said these systems enhance situational awareness and mission planning, increasing the success rates of firefighting missions.

Fontanelli concluded: “Our systems, which already combine outstanding high-resolution images and state-of-the-art machine learning techniques to provide operators with incredible levels of detail and unprecedented situational awareness, offer the ability to configure target detection ranges according to the desired distance and target size. This enhancement allows users to tailor the system’s performance to meet specific surveillance needs more effectively.”

The wildfire fighting will be assisted by software that maps the wildfire and gives the pilot feedback on best angle of attack

Fosen agreed that the technology that goes onto UASs is what gives drones the edge for AFF operations: “The wildfire fighting will be assisted by software that maps the wildfire and gives the pilot feedback on best angle of attack, and the drops are released by an aiming system. Since we have the developing tools for our autopilot, we can integrate new sensors and tools very fast. We also have software and hardware simulators to correct errors before it goes live on the platform.”

Looking forward and wearing an educational hat, Edwards concluded: “Our industry is at a turning point where technology expectations surpass the requirement for training at a basic, fundamental level. Part 107 [the FAA’s small UAS rule] is insufficient to understand how to operate a UAS safely and effectively in the National Airspace System (NAS).”

Fosen is proud that the Phoenix is at the forefront of drone technology, indicating that it is not hampered by the limitations of former restrictions to payload, capacity and range, making drones much more capable and able to contribute to a diverse spectrum of roles within the firefighting sector: “Phoenix today has an external capacity of 1,400kg; that is unheard of in the drone industry. The range of the Phoenix CPSD is 650km and it can fly for five hours before it needs to refuel. Phoenix has an internal payload capacity of 1,000kg and has probably the biggest cargo bay of rotor drones today.”

Summary

Wildfires have dramatically increased around the world, while personnel have decreased, creating new opportunities for inventions such as remotely piloted systems to bring new technology solutions. UAS/drone pilot training, improvements to software and mapping, and data analysis are all complex enhancements to the industry. The services of this industry are progressing, offering an elevated opportunity for firefighting systems.