MARCH AIR RESERVE BASE, Calif. -- Five years after a proof-of-concept mission, the MQ-9 Reaper drone has developed into a telephone substitution property inwards California’s struggle against wildfires, including the Carr as well as Mendocino Complex Fires, which are currently burning inwards Northern California.
“It’s a applied scientific discipline I never idea I’d see,” said Jeremy Salizzoni, a laissez passer on notice technical specialist alongside the California Department of Forestry as well as Fire Protection who was embedded alongside the California Air National Guard’s 163rd Attack Wing at March Air Reserve Base, California, during 2013’s devastating Rim Fire.
More than 250,000 acres burned inwards August 2013 equally the Rim Fire raged inwards Tuolumne County, California. At the time, it was the state’s 3rd largest wildfire on record. More than 100 structures were lost inwards the blaze, which took nine weeks to fully contain.
Game-Changing Technology
Eleven days after the Rim Fire started, the wing launched a first-of-its sort mission to overfly the laissez passer on notice alongside an MQ-1 Predator remotely piloted reconnaissance aircraft as well as beam dorsum real-time video footage of the laissez passer on notice to Salizzoni as well as wing news analysts working inwards an operations facility at March.
Through the Predator’s footage, Salizzoni, who was used to driving for hours through rugged terrain to access overlook points as well as seat eyes on the leading border of a fire, could consider whatever expanse of the laissez passer on notice he wanted, inwards existent fourth dimension as well as without e'er leaving the operations facility.
The remotely piloted aircraft’s thermal imaging photographic telly camera provided a persuasion of the laissez passer on notice dissimilar anything he’d e'er seen. Traditional aerial assets are important, but run across limitations due to smoke, fuel, height as well as champaign of view, he said.
“It was such a dramatic modify from anything I’d seen inwards my career,” Salizzoni said. “It was similar beingness blind as well as hence having vision inwards the blink of an eye.”
He as well as his colleagues knew they had a novel tool inwards their firefighting toolbox.
“We saw things over the course of didactics of that laissez passer on notice that you lot couldn’t stimulate got made up,” Salizzoni said. “I don’t intend there’s a improve intel resources at our disposal correct now.”
During its eight-day emergency activation for the Rim Fire, the 163rd Reconnaissance Wing -- the unit’s cite at the fourth dimension -- logged to a greater extent than than 150 hours of laissez passer on notice back upwards as well as was credited alongside helping firefighters expedite containment.
Domestic Response
In the 5 years since, the 163rd Attack Wing has changed its cite as well as the sort of plane it flies, but ane affair hasn’t changed: the wing’s dedication to domestic disaster reply missions correct hither at home.
RPAs are no longer simply trying to attempt out their worth, said Air Force Maj. Mike Baird, the senior news officeholder at the 163rd Attack Wing. The wing’s MQ-9 Reaper RPAs -- a big-brother to the recently-retired Predators -- are an in-demand incident awareness as well as assessment property preferred yesteryear California’s civil government when disaster strikes.
The wing has supported to a greater extent than than xx wildfires since 2013, but it takes to a greater extent than than simply airplanes, Baird said. Keeping California condom takes a wing-wide effort.
“What we’ve been doing behind the scenes from maintenance as well as communications to refining our deployment as well as personnel processes has led upwards to our mightiness to furnish an unprecedented degree of MQ-9 support,” Baird said.
The wing provided real-time total motion video back upwards over a seat out of fires inwards 2017, including California’s well-nigh destructive laissez passer on notice on tape as well as also its largest laissez passer on notice to date. More than 5,600 structures were damaged as well as 22 lives were lost during the Tubbs Fire inwards Sonoma County inwards October. Two months later, inwards December, the Thomas Fire ravaged Ventura as well as Santa Barbara counties to expire the state’s largest laissez passer on notice on tape alongside to a greater extent than than 280,000 acres burned.
Innovation on the Fly
The wing industrial plant to refine its techniques as well as procedures, as well as industrial plant to expand the detailed real-time incident awareness as well as assessment information it provides to incident commanders. Innovation on the wing is the cite of the game.
An investment yesteryear James G. Clark, managing director of Air Force innovation, as well as Air Force Col. Chris McDonald from the disruptive excogitation sectionalisation inwards Clark’s office, helped the wing’s Hap Arnold Innovation Center prepare a specialized network to force as well as line information from RPAs as well as other data-generating assets from civilian as well as armed services organizations.
The network’s customizable information sets -- coupled alongside the RPAs’ real-time thermal imagery -- furnish incident commanders as well as offset responders a mutual operating motion-picture demo they tin access from anywhere, anytime.
RPAs proved “an chance for people to brand tactical as well as objective based decisions on existent fourth dimension information,” Salizzoni said.
As the Rim Fire nears its 5th anniversary, RPAs are ane time once to a greater extent than inwards the sky, flight through fume to deliver information as well as protect Californians equally wildfires ravage the state.
By July 31, the 163rd was on its 5th laissez passer on notice of the summer.
Throughout July, the wing flew nearly 350 hours to back upwards civil government working the County, Klamathon, Ferguson, Carr, Mendocino Complex as well as Eel fires, as well as is credited alongside helping to protect thousands of structures inwards the process. The MQ-9 provided close real-time total motion video as well as frequent fire-line updates to conclusion makers determining where to prepare upwards hereafter containment lines.
It’s a marathon pace, but the wing’s airmen upwards for it, said Air Force 1st Lt. Frank Cruz, officeholder inwards accuse of the 163rd Aircraft Maintenance Squadron, whose unit of measurement provides straight back upwards for the MQ-9’s around-the-clock laissez passer on notice operations to assist civil authorities.
“Everyone is 100 percentage on board,” Cruz said. “They’re all-in.”
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