Evergreen provides helicopters and the 747 “Supertanker” on contract to firefighting agencies. Now they are also offering an unmanned aerial vehicle that can obtain real-time imagery to firefighters on the ground. It can remain in the air for 20 hours at a time while transmitting the data back to Evergreen which then puts it on the Internet for firefighters.
But I’m not sure if the Federal Aviation Administration presently allows the use of UAVs over fires except in remote locations like Alaska, which Wildfire Today wrote about on August 27.
Fire Department Network News has a 3-minute video report about Evergreen’s UAV.
(VIDEO NO LONGER AVAILABLE)
I wonder what the flight rate is for it? It would be a great dusk to dawn observation tool.