Rural McLean County fire departments are getting a look at how drones can help them when fighting fires.
At the former site of Camp Peairs, near Lake Bloomington in Hudson, several empty shipping containers are stacked atop and near each other. Inside, the containers are connected by doorways and stairs to simulate a building.
Multiple McLean County fire departments and protection districts use the spot for training. On a humid August evening, a Towanda Fire Department crew geared up to practice navigating smoky rooms and pulling hose lines through a structure.
In the corner of one of the shipping containers was a pile of wooden pallets and straw, tinder for a soon-to-be raging fire. Once those materials were lit, the shipping containers quickly filled up with heat and smoke.
Outside, McLean County Emergency Management Agency [EMA] Operations Corporal Jeremy McAfee set up the Autel Evo II 640T drone. The construction-orange aerial device costs nearly $5,000.
McAfee said the EMA, which operates as part of the county Sheriff’s Office, received a grant from Norfolk Southern to purchase the drone. So far, it has been used for search-and-rescue operations and to train cadaver dogs.
Once the drone was a few hundred feet in the air, McAfee turned on the thermal imaging function. The drone has a display screen on its controller, which is about a foot wide. There’s another screen stationed on an EMA truck for command crews to observe.
On the display, a bright red spot revealed itself.
“Right here, this red,” McAfee said while pointing to the display screen, “that is where the fire was started at, so that’s the hottest spot.”
McAfee could tap the drone’s controller screen to get a temperature reading. The drone’s thermal imaging detected the fire was burning at around 800 degrees.
A benefit for small and rural departments
Pin-pointing the fire’s exact location can save time and effort.
Towanda Fire Department [TFD] Chief Brett Lueschen, who is also the City of Bloomington’s water director, said typically they give general directions to their firefighters on where the blaze is. If they have an aerial thermal image, they can point crews directly to the fire.
Plus, Lueschen said it doesn’t use any of TFD’s limited resources, since the help is coming from the county.
“EMA is a very, very good resource for us to call. It doesn't take away any of our members [from the fire] but we can actually come and have them deploy their drone and give us a bird's eye view above the structure,” Lueschen said.
The thermal image can also detect changes before the human eye can.
In July, EMA joined Lexington’s Fire Department for a training exercise involving an old building. McAfee said LFD wanted to burn one building and save a nearby shed. Using the drone, he could see when the shed was heating up and at risk of catching fire and directed firefighters to douse it with water to cool it down.
Once the fire is out, the aerial thermal view from the drone can detect hotspots that are at risk of catching again.
“When they're overhauling it to look for hotspots, you can use this to get an aerial view. If that building's down or it's got a hole in the roof you can still use this to see into it,” McAfee said.
There are some limitations. The Autel Evo II model can fly for 38 minutes, barring it is not using any attachments or extra tools. McAfee did have additional batteries at the ready.
The model came with a spotlight, a speaker that can play a recording or be used in real-time, and a dropper tool. The dropper tool has been used to train the cadaver dogs by dropping a specimen for them to find without leaving a human trail or scent.
