UAV Helped Fight Fires in California

Getting the picture. Thermal-infrared images from the unmanned Ikhana (inset) helped firefighters battle the Poomacha fire near San Diego's Palomar Observatory.
CREDITS: NASA/2007 DIGITAL GLOBE/EUROPA TECHNOLOGIES; (INSET) JIM ROSS/NASA
Source: "NATURAL DISASTERS: Drone Spy Plane Helps Fight California Fires" by Jon Cohen, Science 2 November 2007: Vol. 318. no. 5851, p. 727.

"One unsung hero in the weeklong battle against the massive wildfires that devastated southern California last week was an unmanned Predator B airplane, originally designed to gather intelligence for the military. By providing firefighters with up-to-the-minute data on the many conflagrations, it helped in the coordination of firefighting efforts that spared many lives and structures--including the venerable Palomar Observatory.

"The plane now flies for NASA and the U.S. Forest Service, which have outfitted it with state-of-the-art, thermal-infrared sensors to help firefighters decide where to do battle. The 5-year demonstration project, dubbed Ikhana after the Native American Choctaw word for "aware" or "intelligent," transmitted hot-spot data to a satellite. Within 15 minutes, fire command centers all over San Diego received color-coded Google Map images that indicated the temperature on the ground at different locales. "The fire commanders love the data," says aerospace engineer Brent Cobleigh, who leads the project from NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center inside Edwards Air Force Base."

Comment: In previous postings I suggested that UAVs are increasingly attractive for developing nations, as they become less expensive and easier to operate. Disaster management is another application. JAD