When firefighters need clarity fast, drones deliver
For St. Johns County Fire Rescue, drone technology isn’t just a support tool—it’s “another first responder.” From structure fires to remote vehicle incidents, drones are giving incident commanders the visibility they need before they even arrive on scene.
In one fire response, the drone was deployed to a home at the end of a narrow, one-lane dirt road with no nearby hydrants. From the air, firefighters were able to assess water supply options and begin planning before any crew committed to the scene. In another case, a dump truck caught fire in an off-road location with no easy access. The drone arrived first, relayed real-time visuals, and allowed the battalion chief to make faster, safer decisions.
With the drone feeding live intel directly to command, responders are no longer relying solely on binoculars or verbal updates. They’re gaining clarity from above—and it’s changing how they protect their communities.
- One of the very first things once you get on a particular scene, you really wanna
- finalize and make sure you know exactly what's going on.
- It used to be with binoculars or really believing a
- technician on scene, but now, being able to send an unmanned
- asset to get all that information is absolutely critical.
- [upbeat music]
- One of the emergencies that we were able to deploy drones was a
- particular structure fire. There was a very long dirt driveway that was
- only one lane, and there were no hydrants that were close.
- One of the things that I was able to do is get a lot of footage
- and eyes on what the water supply looked like from above.
- I'm able to stand right next to command and show them what all is
- going on, and if they have a question, I can describe what
- is happening elsewhere.
- One of the other incidents was a dump truck that was on fire.
- It was very inaccessible because there's no real
- roads to get out to it. Before the incident commander and
- our battalion chief was on scene, I was able to take a look and see if
- there's any runoff that needed to be contained,
- if there's also any kind
- of hazards they weren't aware of, because dump trucks are 10 feet high
- or so.
- With that elevated position, I'm able to communicate to the
- incident commander information both quickly and from a perspective
- that we haven't
- had before so they can resolve those big emergencies as quickly as possible.
- One of the great things about having a drone in addition to bodies on the
- ground is we are able to get somewhere super fast.
- This call came out as a missing elderly person in a neighborhood.
- As more information started coming in, the aerial assets were able to cover
- an enormous area really efficiently and was able
- to find her safe and sound.
- Having that asset of a drone, having an eye in the sky, it's
- another firefighter, another personnel, who's just
- has a different point of view and can get places that you just can't
- see. Anything that we can supplement
- technology for putting actual people at risk, I'm all for it.
- [dramatic music]
Watch Time
2 Mins 12 Secs