Florida Forestry Service adds drones to help with controlled burns ahead of wildfire season

TAMPA, Fla. - As Spring arrives, so does Florida’s fire season. This year, the Florida Forest Service has a new tool under their belt that they are using to help with controlled burns: Drones.

Jon Hoch is not only a firefighter. He’s now also a trained pilot of an American-made drone, which is one of seven that belong to the Florida Forest Service.

"They're a really effective tool for what we're doing with our controlled burns," said Hoch, the forest resource supervisor at Withlacoochee Forestry Center.

READ: The largest wildfires in U.S. history

Controlled or prescribed burns are when firefighters intentionally start a fire to remove combustible debris, which helps lower the risks to people and property from fast-moving catastrophic fires. Typically, prescribed burns are done by helicopter, which can be expensive, or by hand using a torch, which can be dangerous if winds shift. It could trap a firefighter from escaping.

That's why they're turning to drones, but they aren't ordinary drones. The drones carry balls injected with anti-freeze, and when dropped, after about 20 seconds, they ignite.

"It can give us a very good ignition pattern, which gives us more control over the fire behavior," said Jared Dorrier, a senior ranger with the Florida Forest Service. "And, we can line off an area, usually a little bit quicker, but in an under control manner. So, it's very helpful that way. And we don't have to put personnel out in the block of woods trying to walk and trying to ignite it."

It's controlled by an android tablet, and it has a camera with a live feed and can go as high as 300 feet.

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"It gives us a certain amount of situational awareness, having that lookout above us, because Florida is very flat, and it's hard to see what's going on around you, big picture and being able to have that air resource above you and being able to provide that information feed back to the ground crews is huge for firefighter safety," Dorrier said.

In 2019, Florida became the very first state Forest Service to use drones, but at the time, they were manufactured in China, and ultimately, the program was shut down in 2022 over privacy concerns, but thanks to legislation passed earlier this year, they're now using American-made drones. 

States like California, Georgia and Mississippi have since followed Florida's lead.

"If we got to go assist with search and rescue, we could put it up at night and fly it with our thermal on it and hopefully find lost or injured individuals with it, so there's a lot of potential for the drone that we have not even explored yet," said Keith Mousel, the Florida Forest Service Withlacoochee Forestry Center manager.

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