Urban Search and Rescue Drone Training

Utilising drones at emergency incidents offer several significant benefits to MAWWFRS crews and the Wales USAR Team, which include:

• 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.

MAWWFRS is grateful for the assistance of the National Police Air Service’s control room to test join communication procedures to ensure a safer airspace for all agencies.