On March 5th, 2017, Deputy Chief James Ippolito of the Palm Beach Gardens Fire Rescue deployed a DJI Inspire 1 equipped with the DJI Zenmuse XT powered by a FLIR thermal camera to get a bird’s eye view of a large brush fire.
Dry conditions and 35 mph winds were a bad recipe for high fire danger. With heavy smoke conditions, the Fire Rescue team deployed the FLIR-equipped Zenmuse XT to give incident commanders a clear advantage to understand the scope of the fire and how to deploy resources.
Deputy chief Ippolito was able to identify the flight path of the embers, and the incident commander responded by pre-deploying resources to those areas before the fire spread too wide. The good news – no one was hurt and firefighters were able to bring the fire under control.
Drones are providing a unique way for first responders to help save lives. Learn more about FLIR’s aerial first responder kits here.
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