Spanish Firefighters add Elimco UAS to Their Arsenal

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Spanish Firefighters add Elimco UAS to Their Arsenal


 
 Photo Courtesy of ELIMCO





By Ashley Addington



Spain’s Andalusian authority for the management of wildfires, or INFOCA, has conducted a series of trials to track wildfires at night using an unmanned aircraft, in partnership with the UAS builder Elimco.



Elimco’s E-300 was able to loiter over a mock fire area for about three hours and fly up to 100 kilometers away from its operators.



The new initiative will be a major help in assisting firefighters, as currently only land firefighters are able to track fires at night because flying manned aircraft is too risky, Elimco says. Using a UAS protects human lives and gives firefighters a better understanding of a fire’s direction and size. 



The UAV are equipped with high quality cameras that allow real time footage to be sent directly to the home base for analysis, sending geotagged images and positioning data that can be layered over maps.



With the ability to obtain new information so quickly, firefighters can adjust their methods of fighting a fire. INFOCA has now added UAS-based fire imaging to its protocols and plans to use the UAS when a real wildfire occurs.