Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service (MAWWFRS) has recently enhanced its drone capability, by training an additional seven Remote Pilots (RPs).
From June 10th-14th, a drone training course was run by Aviation Systems Group at the Wales Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) Training Centre in Earlswood, which covered a wide range of topics such as laws relating to drone operations, the principles of flight, emergency procedures, human factors and flight safety.
The four-day course also included a practical flight assessment at Margam Country Park in Neath Port Talbot, which required the trainee RPs to operate drones within visual line of sight, as well as demonstrating what they’d learnt by implementing various drone flight procedures for a variety of simulated emergency situations.
The use of drones by emergency services has increased significantly in recent years as they can provide real-time, enhanced situational awareness to emergency responders when responding to fire and rescue incidents such as wildfires, commercial and domestic structural fires, water borne incidents, missing person searches, collapsed structures and more.
Utilising drones at emergency incidents offer several significant benefits, such as:
- Enhanced safety – drones can assess dangerous situations from the air, reducing the need for emergency services personnel to enter hazardous environments directly. This helps minimise the risk to human life during fires, structural collapses and other emergencies.
- Enhanced Situational Awareness – drones provide real-time, ‘Ground Truth’ information, which greatly improves the ability of Incident Commanders to formulate a plan to deal with an incident.
- Rapid Assessment – drones provide quick aerial views of incident scenes, allowing for faster situational assessment, decision-making and resource allocation.
- Improved Accessibility – drones can reach areas that are difficult or impossible for ground personnel to access, such as high-rise buildings or unstable structures.
- Thermal Imaging – drones with thermal imaging cameras can detect heat sources, monitor heat spread and help locate casualties, especially in water.
The Wales USAR Team’s drone operators – which consists of personnel from MAWWFRS and South Wales Fire and Rescue Service – are often requested to assist in emergency situations.
Read more on how drone technology was used at a large waste fire in Pembrokeshire in early 2024 here.
