A firefighter’s friend

A recent Thursday night CLFD training session at the city’s burn facility included use of the department’s new drone. The drone was purchased with donations and is equipped with either a color camera or the FLIR night vision camera. The CLFD says the drone will be a great tool for finding a lost person or at a large scale fire.-Submitted photos.

Drone gives CLFD valuable eyes in the sky

by Marianne Morf

The Clear Lake Fire Department has added a new weapon to its firefighting arsenal.  A drone.

The unmanned aerial vehicle “UAV” is a DJI Inspire 1,  equipped with two controllers, two iPads, extra batteries and an FLIR thermal camera. The $7,000 FLIR camera detects heat changes so it can see in the dark or detect changes in temperature during the daytime. The UAV also has a high definition color camera, as well.  The package was purchased for about $10,000 with the help of donations.

According to CLFD Captain Jim Finstad, the UAV will help the department in countless ways.

“Say we have a missing child lost in a corn field. We can use the UAV to fly above the corn field and the thermal camera will be able to see in the dark and through the corn for the warmth of the child and assist in finding the lost child,” he explained.  “Last year in Algona they had a person go missing in a canoe and were able to use a UAV to quickly locate the missing canoe and the gentleman who was having a medical issue and by being able to find him faster with the UAV they were able to get him to the hospital faster. Or the kayaker missing in the marsh in Ventura. The VFD located her fairly fast before the sun went down. In both of these cases if it would have been after dark it would have been so much slower and hard to find the missing person. With the UAV and FLIR thermal camera it would hopefully be faster.”

Drones are fast becoming the firefighter’s secret weapon in large fires or at disaster scenes.  Typically when the call comes, firefighters are forced to rush into a blaze or dis-

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saster scene with very little information.  Now, a drone can be launched to pinpoint trouble spots.

Finstad noted that at a large fire, the CLFD could use the UAV to check for hot spots that firefighters had missed or use the UAV to identify dangerous conditions.

“Last week at the B20 Auto fire, we could have used it to see areas of the salvage yard the fire could potentially be spreading, without having to have firefighters walking between the salvaged vehicles to visually see the spreading fire. The incident commander could then decide, based on what the UAV showed, where to send firefighters to best protect fire from spreading,” he said.

A  small group of fire fighters is currently learning how to use the drone, but Finstad said training will be expanding to others who want to be trained on the system.

The Inspire 1, weighing just 7.5 pounds when it is ready to fly, is relatively safe and simple to fly.  It has built-in GPS so it knows where it is at all times.

“So if an operator flying the UAV needs to talk to someone, or needs  to rethink their flight path, they can let go of the controls and it will hover in the same spot until the operator takes controls again,” explained Finstad.

There are two controllers, so one controller can be used for the pilot to fly the UAV and he has an ipad showing him exactly what the UAV is seeing as he is flying it.  It also shows him how far away he is, how fast he is flying, and the altitude he is flying at.  The second operator with the other controller also has an ipad that he can view and he is in control of the camera angle and view. He can turn the camera to view what he wants independent of what the pilot is doing. He can take still pictures, as well as video. Both controllers stream live video to the ipads, so both pilot and camera operator can see what the UAV sees. The UAV can also be operated with only one controller, if needed.

Training will involve both classroom and hands on training covering the operation and UAV rules of flight.

Finstad said the UAV will be in service shortly and will be available for public safety use.  Surrounding fire departments or law enforcement agencies can request the UAV through the Clear Lake Police dispatcher.

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