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Australian drone company Carbonix is assisting Canadian firefighters in spotting so-called “zombie fires” on the ground in Quebec.
Carbonix’s Volanti drones are being used by specialist operator Exo Drone and UAS fire-monitoring company ArgenTech solutions to pinpoint deeply-hidden root fires under the soil, which threaten to reignite wildfires after suppression teams have moved on.
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The effort comes as Quebec sees one of the worst fire seasons in its history, with the Canadian Rockies seeing their largest blaze ever; one town, Jasper, has been 30 per cent consumed by flames reaching as high as 100 metres.
According to Carbonix, replacing crewed helicopters and light planes with its Volanti drones would reduce operating costs by up to 80 per cent and carbon emissions by up to 98 per cent, while simultaneously offering greater operator safety.
“Our technology is doing a job that is usually done by firefighting crews on the ground or in helicopters, at huge expense, with environmental impact, and at significant risk to human life,” said Carbonix CEO Philip Van der Burg.
“The aim is for these fires to be spotted in their infancy and contained before they become the mega blazes.”
Carbonix says its Volanti drones are well-suited to conducting “rapid aerial surveys across vast and rugged terrain”, particularly in remote areas that do not lend themselves to safe and easy monitoring.
“Equipped with a variety of payload sensors including photogrammetry, IR with radiometric data, ISR, and multi- spectral capabilities, it recently became the first Australian fixed-wing vertical take-off and landing drone to execute a fully automated Beyond Visual Line of Sight gathering commercially useful data for a customer,” the company said.
Firefighters are increasingly looking to drones to monitor wildfires in Australia and overseas, with the NSW RFS earlier this year wrapping up a two-week trial using drones to monitor grass and bushfires in the state’s west.
Emergency services in states such as NSW, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia have all investigated using drones as part of firefighting capabilities.
Deb Sparkes, at the time head of innovation for the Australasian Fire and Emergency Service Authorities Council, told Australian Aviation in 2022 that the Australian Association of Unmanned Vehicles had discussed using remotely piloted aircraft system (RPAS) in bushfire detection and suppression following the Black Summer and subsequent royal commission.
“The National Aerial Firefighting Centre put these programs together to look at what the current and potential uses were for our agencies and ask how could we lift that capability?” she said.
“In a factory fire, an RPAS can use thermal imagery to detect hotspots so you can direct your efforts there. For search and rescue, we can throw a drone off a cliff to look for someone, rather than sending someone down on a rope.”
