New Infographic Highlights Rise of Firefighting Drones

As drone solutions continue to grow within public-safety sectors – police and firefighting – many in the UAV industry are tracking new and better ways for these agencies to save lives from above.

One such company, California-based Dronefly recently launched another informative infographic that paints a fascinating canvas of the future of drone firefighting tactics. Dronefly, an authorized enterprise dealer for DJI drones and FLIR thermal cameras, published  a similar graphic about police drone uses in October.

For the uninitiated, an infographic is “a visual image such as a chart or diagram used to represent information or data.” Many major drone players like DJI are making infographics a standard tool in explaining drone data.

Dronefly’s latest offering shows how drones can provide firefighting agencies with a “quickly deployable aerial overview, a lower cost compared to manned aircraft, payload drop systems, and thermal camera payload options.”

The infographic identifies four key uses:

• “Scene Monitoring – Rapid aerial assessment of burning structures. See through smoke with thermal imaging cameras and identify hotspots;
• Search & Rescue – Search over large areas of hard-to-reach land and identify missing people with thermal drone cameras;
• Wildland Firefighting – Understand current fire conditions and reduce risk through better ground crew monitoring;
• Post Fire or Disaster Assessment – Survey and map the scene to assess damage or to search for missing people.”

“The application of drones to work alongside public safety agencies is the future as they have the ability to reach and see places where humans cannot. With cameras, payload drop systems and flood lights, drones can be configured to assist ground crews in any situation,” Dronefly Vice President of Business Development Robert Scott said in a recent press release.

“Why wouldn’t a public safety agency want to use this technology especially if it could keep fire crew safe, making sure they get home at the end of their shift?”

A 2017 market report predicts government drone investment will leap from $100 million to $250 million by 2025 with federal spending alone accounting for $170 million – much of which could land across various public-safety agencies.