RIVERSIDE: National Guard flies drone to Rim Fire

Source: The Press-Enterprise, Riverside, Calif.新蒲崗迷你倉Aug. 30--Americans might be uneasy about the idea of unmanned aircraft prowling their skies.But fire officials are almost giddy about how much information they're getting from a Predator drone that is flying above the Rim Fire near Yosemite National Park. They've been able use the aerial views to see through smoke, direct firefighters and provide timely and accurate maps.This is the first time an MQ-1 Predator -- the same unmanned craft used for missions in Afghanistan and Pakistan -- has been deployed by remote pilots at March Air Reserve Base to help fight a wildfire. The National Guard's 163rd Air Reconnaissance Wing sent the plane from its Victorville training facility on Tuesday evening, Aug. 27."What this has allowed us to get is real-time perimeter (information)," Cal Fire spokeswoman Julie Hutchinson said. "We're seeing spot fires that we might not have been able to identify before."Since 2007, NASA has provided an unmanned aircraft to gather information on several wildfires, but the information wasn't relayed in real time, the craft usually didn't fly at night and the duration of the flights was more limited.The Predator has the capability to troll the skies at 19,000 feet for 22 hours at a time. The nighttime data it provides with infrared cameras is particularly useful, said Lt. Col. Eric Fagerland, who has been flying some of the missions."The most important thing is getting accurate information on the position of the fire," Fagerland said. "Without this capability, (fire) crews show up in the morning looking at a map that's probably 20 hours old."Now, he said, they are looking at the perimeter of the fire that's only a few hours or possibly only minutes old.Jeremy Salizzoni, a fire captain out of San Diego, has created those perimeter maps in the past. He would drive or hike to areas where he could get a vantage point and draw or record the fire data by hand. He spent five days on the Rim Fire mapping in remote areas."Just to get to an advantageous place to see anything took hours," Salizzoni said. The Predator has been providing the same information "in a matter of minutes."Spotter planes are used regularly in wildfires. They help direct the airplanes and helicopters dropping water and retardant on the fire and also help map the fire. But those planes don't normally fly mini storaget night and they don't always have the vantage point or equipment to see everything they need to see.With the Predator, Salizooni said, "we're seeing through smoke we wouldn't be able to see through." The drone circles the Rim Fire's more than 300-square-mile footprint in hours, not days, he said.It didn't take long for the drone to show its usefulness."Within the first four hours, we were able to identify a spot fire outside the containment lines," he said.It was 3 a.m."Crews are in the dark and the smoke, where maybe they couldn't see," he added. "But we were able to direct them right in there, and they took care of it."Fagerland's computer screen at March shows a broad view of the fire zone along the shoreline of the Hetch Hetchy reservoir, in Yosemite. The camera operator next to him zooms in to look at a closeup of a helicopter hovering over the water, refilling its water tank. The camera then follows the craft as it flies out to the fire line to drop its load.Evaluators in another room can look at the drop, assess its effectiveness and determine whether the same spot needs to be hit again.Having the National Guard and Cal Fire officials working in concert is nothing new. The Guard often supplies tanker planes, helicopters and firefighting crews on major wildfires. The Rim Fire is no exception.But Col. Dana Hessheimer, commander of the 163rd Wing, said getting permission to use the Predator required filing paperwork that went all the way to the office of the Secretary of Defense in Washington, D.C. Tight parameters were established about what the Predator could look at and what it couldn't."With the drone hysteria," Hessheimer said, "that's been the biggest challenge. That's a piece the American people don't understand, how restricted we are."He pointed to the monitors above the flight controls."You can see we're not spying on anyone," he said.Hutchinson said Cal Fire officials are impressed by the information the Predator provides, but it's too early to know under what circumstances it might be used on other wildfires."I think it's going to be accessibility, size and complexity of the fire," she said. But, she added, "It's definitely a tool for the future."Copyright: ___ (c)2013 The Press-Enterprise (Riverside, Calif.) Visit The Press-Enterprise (Riverside, Calif.) at .PE.com Distributed by MCT Information Servicesself storage