County Fire tests Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in San Bernardino

San Bernardino County Fire Protection District has begun a 30-day trial to test the effectiveness of Unmanned Aerial Systems as a first response to certain calls for fire service.

The idea is to use unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), or drones, to address reports of unknown types of fires, which is a call where the reporting party describes seeing smoke without a vehicle, structure, nor vegetation involved.

According to County Fire, a majority of these calls are unfounded when firefighters respond to the reported location.  Others are determined to be cooking or warming fires that present no threat to the community. Over the past week alone, County Fire has responded to 53 unknown fire calls in the City of San Bernardino and 833 during the final three months of 2024.

During the study, fire personnel will send a UAV to the location first to investigate the report.  Based on the size of the trial area, UAV response times will be able to be measured in seconds. Here is  footage generated by the UAV during a fire on G Street on Monday, January 13.

County Fire’s UAV fleet is equipped with multiple sensors including high definition and thermal imaging cameras and they are operated by a team of licensed UAV pilots.  The images can be transmitted to responding units for situational awareness as well as improved efficiency and safety.

Unmanned Aerial Systems have been used by County Fire previously for mapping fire perimeters, gathering information at hazardous materials responses and searching for victims in flooding incidents.