“I don’t think people understand how significant an accomplishment it was this summer to actually fly (drones) on a real fire,” Carl Seielstad, UM professor and DroneFire project leader, said of the Roaring Lion test flight.

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Currently, manned helicopters fly at near-canopy level to record hotspots in the fire with thermal imagers and GPS. The maps created from these flights are crucial to the ground crews' understanding of what the fire is doing.

The idea behind introducing drones into the field is to create a system where ground crews can see images and hotspots in real time. Furthermore, the safety benefits are two-fold: real-time information will help reduce risks to firefighters on the ground, and the replacement of manned helicopters with drones takes pilots out of a particularly hazardous situation.

While hopes are high, full implementation of drones to monitor wildfires will require more time. Government regulations and protocols on drone implementation remain up in the air, but some districts have taken a keen interest.

One of the many things that aligned for the DroneFire crew to launch their first real fire test flight in Roaring Lion was cooperation from the Bitterroot National Forest office.