Safety has become an integral part of every system, not only to secure the employees from injuries but also to enhance the production efficiency at its best. Industry 4.0 would be inconceivable without dismantling the risks related to the fire. The digital transformations are unfolding new challenges and opportunities for the existing and emerging industry players. Acknowledging the technological advancements, the organizations are making swift moves in order to connect the dots of traditional and new-age processes.
Thanks to their unified efforts which resulted in the discovery of Drones – a tech-based innovation taking mankind towards a pathway of civilization. It is a gift to the fire and safety management sector, helping firefighter collect significant information about ongoing fires. It is creating a framework which can go beyond and see beyond the conventional methods of reducing risks associated with fire. Drones are empowering the industry and are on the way to transform the fire and safety management arena like never before.
“Drones overall will be more impactful than I think people recognize, in positive ways to help society” – Bill Gates.
Power to Assess
Drones effectively support the firefighting operations by providing an exclusive overhead scenario of the fire, thereby enabling the firefighters with real-time information about how a fire is unfolding and its origin. It helps them to recognize the rapidity at which the fire is spreading and what can it harm next, when dealing with the wildfires. It helps in decoding the key information about exits and entry points to successfully overcome the structure fire.
Gathering data at its best and revealing it with utmost security is what best describes a drone. It has the power to assess smoldering hot spots invisible to the naked eye through a thermal camera attached to it. This helps the firefighters find these spots and make sure to avoid them. These cameras help firefighters in finding people that are trapped on an upper level of a building, or in a wildfire, and focus their efforts to rescue them. This also enhances the ability to see into the windows and gain real-time information within a burning building.
Prompt Response
Firefighters not only fight fires, they save lives!
Drones have the power to collect data and respond promptly in order to find people trapped in their homes or vehicles and divert necessary rescue efforts to help them. Using drones enables emergency deliveries in disasters including Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs), and other equipments needed on the ground.
Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) offers a quick, safe way to capture information related to catastrophic events like floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, etc. This timely information aids the incident commanders and emergency managers to significantly understand the magnitude and impact on building infrastructure, road conditions, and living conditions. This in turn, helps in determining the additional resources needed from the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), neighboring communities, as well as the other organizations.
Flying to Rescue
Half the battle is already won, if the situation of the fire-prone area is known. Also, when it comes to saving lives, situational awareness plays a major role. Drones help capturing images and creating orthomosaic maps of the infrastructures as well as the areas where the firefighters work. This helps in prominent planning as the exits, entrances and the overall area is under surveillance. Also, the orthomosaic maps can be used by the incident commander to provide a comparison between normal conditions and fire conditions for different parts of a building, during a fire. These maps also help in keeping records when dealing with a post-fire scene, so that even if the scene changes over time there is still a complete data set that can be used to investigate.
As such, using a drone to capture aerial footage plays a dual role – one, the fire-prone situational awareness; two, the collection of first-hand information about the fire. This information collected in the form of images and videos can be archived and used for investigations.
The Last Flames
In after-action assessments, the aerial video footage and images captured by a drone can be crucial in improving the approach and identify future training needs. This could also be used to train the emerging firefighters in exploring the real-life examples of how a fire might unfold. This can reduce the loopholes in the decisions that were made and boost the future decisions. Drone is the next big thing – an innovation designed for public safety, a step towards a safer world, and a resource striving hard to pass on that safer world to the Gen Z.
Business organizations and government agencies are now using drones in various ways to avoid the existing as well as the future disturbances. With this power-driven technology, the world is on its pathway to change the fire and safety landscape.
This truly explicates that “more advancements in drone technology, more lives saved. And more lives saved will create a better tomorrow.”
The Role of Drones in Fire and Safety Management
