Advancements in technology have accelerated the use of unmanned aircraft systems (UASs)/ drones, for research and operations during wildland fires. Drones offer various benefits, such as spotting potential flare-ups, maintaining crew member awareness, supporting firefighting efforts, collecting meteorological data for plume dispersion calculations, assessing vegetation before and after burns, studying fire dynamics, conducting spot ignitions, and sampling emissions to assess smoke hazards.
Drones’ flexibility, portability, night-time capability, and real-time telemetry provide valuable information to incident responders, aiding decision-making. The emergence of edge computation and 5G/6G networks enables instant in-flight analyses, crucial for generating products that support fire management decisions during the response stage.
TREEADS project announced a call for papers in the area of Drones. This newest special issue entitled: “Drones for Wildfire and Prescribed Fire Science”.
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