We were talking about a new tool that we can introduce a new conversation on risk management.
From a risk leader it really allows us the opportunity to fly in many different conditions.
How are we giving firefighters a tool that they can they can utilize on a on a daily basis.
It's also beneficial to giving them real-time information. My name is Dirk Giles. I'm the
UAS Program Manager for the Forest Service. I'm Justin Baxter and I'm the National UAS Operations
Specialist. My name is Kelly Boyd. I work for the U.S. Forest Service. I'm the National UAS
Aerial Ignition Specialist. Robert Trincado, the Director of the National Interagency Prescribed
Fire Training Center. My name is Tyler Mungall. I'm the R9 UAS Aviation Specialist and this is,
and this is ,and this is, and this is the UAS (Drone) Aerial Ignition Academy.
The UAS (drone) Aerial Ignition Academy is a place where we can
train our UAS pilots to fly UAS on prescribed fires and also give them experience using
aerial ignition devices to further help fire managers with prescribed fire.
So aerial ignitions, we use it's a system created by a company called drone amplified and it uses,
they're called dragon eggs. They look like about the size of a paintball and they're filled with
a chemical. And when that chemical is mixed with ethylene glycol or antifreeze you get a chemical
reaction that that creates a small a small fire on the ground. So we'll use we'll utilize the
UAS to fly the units and drop the dragon eggs to start little fires instead of having a firefighter
walk across the unit or or again using a manned helicopter to do it. We're here at Tall Timbers
Research Station. It's a beautiful campus that affords us the opportunity to have a classroom
setting and then 50 yards outside of the of the classroom, we can actually start to fly in a
really cool environment. It's a four day course and it's split up each day between classroom the
classroom portion and then some objective based flight exercises in the afternoon.
We start out with kind of the introduction to the aircraft and then we'll move into
the payload itself, the aerial ignition payload itself, maintenance, cleaning, setup, breakdown.
We'll move into kind of concepts of of firing as a whole and then the concepts of aerial firing. So
burn patterns and you know how to how to really get the effects on the land that
the managers are looking for. What we have an opportunity here is to teach in the classroom
and and then immediately apply those skills from the classroom
into this safe environment. You know it's a controlled environment for us.
The academy is going wonderful. I couldn't ask for a better week of learning and information sharing
networking. All of our modules are made up of such a huge diverse background of students
from all different agencies. My favorite part of the academy is just to be involved
in the environment. UAS is a new field and it's continuing to grow. So getting to meet the people
that are pushing the program forward from whether or not that's at that higher level of leadership
with those more experienced pilots or the people coming more into this role and starting to fill
that gap there and being able to create those bonds as an agency. These students here are future
instructors. And so they're also getting that benefit as well. They've been hand selected by
program managers and their supervisors that this is the future of the unmanned aerial systems and
specifically with aerial ignition. Right whether you're hiking whether you're burning whether
you're holding a line on a wildfire holding a line up on a prescribed fire, the UAS can also patrol
and scout lines that otherwise would have either a have to have to been flown by a helicopter or you
would have to send a module in to recon in advance. So there's so many benefits to this. The base rule
of aviation is is this flight necessary um so now we have a new tool to insert into that scenario of
maybe we should not be finding a helicopter there. Maybe we can use this system or now we
can actually unlock different opportunities where we couldn't use some of our piloted assets due to
smoke or at night but now we can use an unmanned system within that profile and so to really
lock down on our safety case for the agencies. I think it it really comes down to that idea
of working smarter not harder and utilizing the technologies that are out there to our advantage.
That's my guiding focus is to increase safety for our overall employee well-being.