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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Eye in sky may be forest fire tool

Associated Press

IDAHO FALLS – The U.S. Forest Service is looking to unmanned aircraft as a way to track forest fires while keeping firefighters safe.

Tracking the location of a forest fire is a crucial part of battling the blaze. Traditionally, fire managers have relied on pilots flying over the flames at night, shooting pictures using heat-sensitive cameras. Mission managers then assign tasks based on the photos.

But there are situations that are too dangerous for human pilots – such as low visibility caused by a smoky fire.

So when the Forest Service learned of the tests that researchers at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory were doing on small, cheaper unmanned aerial vehicles, they jumped on board.

“We’re always looking for new and better ways to accomplish things,” said Everett Hinkley, who works for the Forest Service’s Remote Sensing Applications Center.

The Forest Service is planning to try out a few with heat-sensing cameras on a fire this spring or summer somewhere in Montana, Hinkley said.

Some tests done at the laboratory last year showed that as many as five of the small, unmanned aircraft can be monitored by a single operator.

“It’s the advent of cheap computing technologies and cheap sensors that has made these affordable. We couldn’t have done it three or four years ago,” said Scott Bauer, INEEL’s project manager.

The planes are already used for national security surveillance, and can be adapted for a variety of tasks, depending on the instruments they take on board, he said.

The key has been making them affordable, which also reduces the risk of losing one, so that they can be used by clients with smaller pocketbooks, Bauer said.

The laboratory’s work in improving the computer controls and sensors also attracted the attention of NASA, which has been working for more than 10 years on improving and standardizing unmanned aerial vehicles.

NASA did its own tests last year when it flew an unmanned aerial vehicle equipped with a camera over small fires set in drums. The planes were able to send back real-time video using a satellite connection, said Alan Brown, a NASA spokesman.

NASA also is helping the Federal Aviation Administration develop guidelines that would assure the vehicles can be used without being a threat to manned aircraft or people on the ground.

The problem today is that the small aerial vehicles can be invisible to other planes or air traffic controllers on the ground, Brown said.

“They need a see-and-avoidance system,” he said, adding that the vehicles also need technologies that will allow the craft to operate independently but predictably.