BC Wildfire Service embraces new technology, uses drone in controlled burn near Boston Bar

Fons Raedschelders, the superintendent of the BC Wildfire Service’s cultural and prescribed fire program, told CFJC Today it was exciting to see the drone be used to fight an active wildfire after several years of testing.

“We’ve been using drones on wildfires for a really long time in the form of hot spot mapping and then some ortho-mosaic imagery or LIDAR and forest management and stuff,” he said. “But then to step that into an active incident… you want to be confident.”

“Different parts of fires need different tools but the transition is a lot easier when we’ve had years to learn some of the lessons. We’ve melted a battery or two on the very first prescribed burn, so we learn those lessons that we didn’t have to learn on a wildfire what that margin for error is very small.”

For this weekend’s ignition, crews used the drone to drop plastic spheres the size of ping pong balls that ignite on impact. Another drone was also used to track and map the progress in real-time.

“All of this comes after we’ve established containment lines and all the holding features and used our fire behaviour experience in terrain and topography,” Raedschelders said. “The ignition drone does have a camera on it, but the observation drone gives us access to imagery.”

“We can zoom in to certain flanks or parts of the fire. We can access wide-shots to see the column is moving, how smoke it moving, how embers are transplanting. We can also get infrared imagery if we want to observe different aspects of the fires and the fuels.”

Drone technology has been years in the making, and its expected to help make it easier to fight fires in terrain and in situations that aren’t safe for ground crews or existing aerial resources to work in.

“The hard part is actually leaning how to integrate it into the operation,” Raedschelders added. “How do you work when you have helicopters in the air space and drones? Communications, making sure that pilots – the drone pilots and the ignition specialists or the operation specialists or the holding crews – are speaking the same language and are able to work together [is important].”

New technology is not just limited to drones as the BC Wildfire Service has been using night vision-equipped helicopters to fight fires since 2024. This year, there are five of them under contract helping fight fires around the clock, instead of just during daylight hours.

“They’ve been active on the Saw Creek fire which occurred in Lytton earlier in the season,” information officer Jean Strong said. “They were also active in the Boston Bar area. They’ve been moved from Penticton to Kamloops and all throughout the different fire centres depending on where the most need has been.”

BC Wildfire officials say the new technology is not meant to replace existing firefighting techniques, but rather to ensure there are different tools available to more effectively combat blazes, based on what the situation requires.

“Helicopters can go a heck of a lot further and a heck of a lot higher but drones can fly a heck of a lot lower and maybe be a little bit more precise in some rocky, complex terrain that a helicopter can’t,” Raedschelders said. “Flying low and slow in a helicopter is a very dangerous operation, but flying far and out of sight is not something that we do with drones, either.”

“We’re learning all of those things and we’re trying to utilize the drone in places where we don’t want to have to have our responders because it’s too risky.”

Added Strong, “We’re seeing more and more extreme fire behaviour, so the more we can take advantage of the technologies that we can keep up with the changing climate and the changing fire landscape as well, the better everyone will be.”

by Victor Kaisar

BC Wildfire Service embraces new technology, uses drone in controlled burn near Boston Bar

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