Drones: Safety at height

Phil Brown, Account Executive, and David Benowitz, VP of Strategy and Marketing, BRINC, discuss the role of drones in fire service response.

Tell us about your background and your roles at BRINC?

Phil Brown: I joined BRINC in February. I have around 14 years of fire service experience, having started in 2012. In 2020, I started the UAS programme at the agency I was with before joining BRINC.

David Benowitz: I’m BRINC’s VP of Strategy and Marketing. I work with our product team on what comes next, including partnerships, product roadmaps and integrations. A big part of what we’re doing in the fire space is making sure we’re connected to the technology and platforms agencies are already using.

Drone adoption has been relatively slow in the fire service compared with sectors such as law enforcement. Why do you think that is?

DB: The challenge has been turning that into something operational that can be incorporated into budgets and developed into larger programmes. Many fire agencies don’t have significant funding available to establish new programmes. There’s also a generational shift happening within these agencies. Leadership may be comfortable with the systems they already have, while a younger generation is looking towards drones and recognising their value. It will take time for that generation to move up through the ranks and start making decisions about where drones sit among the agency’s priorities.

PB: There’s also a perception within the fire service that a drone is simply something you put over a fire. But when agencies look at all the use cases for drone and DFR programmes, they start to see how beneficial they can be. As we continue to add integrations, the technology can extend across fire prevention, arson investigations, tactical operations and wildfire mapping.

Where are you seeing the greatest value from drones in fire response?

PB: The core value of drones in the fire service is safety. On the structure fire side, we can put a drone in the air and provide information before units arrive on scene. I believe around threequarters of Maydays occur at fires where there hasn’t been a complete 360-degree assessment.

If we can provide that information to first-arriving units sooner, I hope we can reduce the number of Maydays. Giving someone several minutes of additional information before they arrive means they can think through the situation and make better tactical decisions. I think that’s a huge step forward for firefighter safety.

We’re also seeing potential in traffic collision location awareness. If a caller provides an incorrect location, a drone can help identify the correct location, improving resource deployment and getting crews to the right place more quickly.

At BRINC, we’re attaching medical payloads to our drones. We can deliver Narcan, tourniquets and AEDs much faster than previously possible. If we can get an AED to someone in one or two minutes rather than six or seven, that could significantly improve patient outcomes, particularly in rural areas.

Do you see drone technology adoption increasing as wildfire activity increases?

DB: We’re seeing more wildfires globally, as well as more extreme weather events. Drones are now becoming standard for wildfire response. Many agencies rely on them to coordinate different agencies and understand the situation.

It’s becoming the starting point for wildfire response. It begins with a drone flight rather than the drone being an afterthought.

PB: One of the challenges agencies face is finding the actual location of a wildfire or brush fire. Someone might call and say, “There’s smoke in the area,” rather than providing a specific address.

By putting a drone in the air, we can find that location and speed up the response. That allows crews to get ahead of a fire before it becomes so large that the local jurisdiction needs significantly more resources.

We’re also working with companies involved in lightning strike detection. If we can determine that a lightning strike has a high probability of causing a fire, we can get a drone into the area and assess the situation before the fire develops.

In areas with heavy timber, it can take time for a fire to become established. If we can identify a fire immediately after a lightning strike and get crews to the exact location, that could be a game changer for the fire service.

How do you approach Fire Chiefs who may still be unsure about the technology, and how do you overcome that initial apprehension?

PB: When I meet with a fire agency, my initial goal is to understand how they operate. What are their challenges? What are some of the shortcomings they’re dealing with? Where do they think they could improve?

I also encourage agencies to speak to departments that are already using our drones and ask what benefits they’ve experienced.

When I started the drone programme at my previous agency, we received a lot of pushback. It took about six months of responding to calls and putting the drone over fires to demonstrate the difference it could make.

If someone reports smoke and you send out an initial brush response, in areas such as Southern California and Arizona that can involve aircraft, bulldozers, crews and engines. If we can get a drone there first and establish that there’s nothing showing, agencies may be able to reduce that response and achieve significant financial savings.

How do you see drones being used in the fire service over the next five years?

DB: We’re now building drones and docks that effectively create a new infrastructure for emergency response. We’ll be delivering larger payloads, covering larger areas and deploying larger aircraft capable of covering more ground.

Instead of arriving on scene and then deploying a drone, the drone could get there first, take an action and help resolve the situation before personnel arrive.

I see larger drones that can fly for longer, with better imaging, greater payload capacity and more automation. These systems can be pre-positioned and ready to go rather than requiring personnel to drive to the scene and deploy them.

PB: I think we’ll see agency-specific DFR programmes built around individual operational needs.

BRINC’s engineering team is already taking the needs of individual agencies and building software integrations and solutions around them. That could be an agency that needs wildfire mapping and hotspot detection, one with a large USAR or hazmat programme that needs air-monitoring devices or one that wants to use drones for prevention.

Another potential game changer for fire service DFR, particularly in rural areas, is Guardian. It can fly at 60 mph, remain airborne for 60 minutes, automatically swap batteries and operate for more than 23 hours a day with minimal human intervention. It can also carry up to 10 pounds of payload.

I think that will change the way fire departments view DFR programmes and help grow them throughout the US.