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Mini-drones could help fight wildfires — if the FAA allows it
The head of a robotics company told lawmakers the FAA must ease restrictions on privately operated drones to let them fly higher.
CLIMATEWIRE | The government should loosen restrictions on privately operated drones so they can help wildfire control by providing real-time weather data to predict the spread of a fire, the CEO of a Boston robotics company told a congressional hearing Wednesday.
James Peverill, CEO of GreenSight, told House lawmakers that the palm-sized drones made by his company would help local authorities issue timely evacuation warnings and extinguish fires in remote areas.
But Federal Aviation Administration safety regulations prohibit privately operated drones from flying higher than 400 feet, which restricts their use, Peverill said.
“The limitation is not really the technology at this point. It actually is the regulations,” Peverill told the House Science, Space and Technology Committee. “Progress is needed there to get this technology out and benefit the U.S. public.”
The hearing on improving fire-weather prediction comes as Congress is considering legislation that would allow commercial deployment of remotely operated aircraft at higher altitudes.
The bill, approved by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on June 14, would reauthorize the FAA for five years and require the agency to start a rulemaking process to allow private drones to fly higher than 400 feet.
Ali Tohidi, a professor of mechanical engineering and wildfire dynamics at San Jose State University, told the science committee that researchers need the more accurate data from drones to create better models that predict a fire’s path.
More accurate modeling could improve estimates of fire risk and lead to “more effective and efficient mitigation and preparedness” such as optimizing evacuation routes, Tohidi said.
GreenSight’s WeatherHive drones could cover 200 square miles per flight, gathering 3D weather data that helps climatologists build models that predict how wildfires spread, Peverill said. He said the Air Force has expressed interest in procuring GreenSight’s drones.
If deployed nationally, drones for weather data collection would augment the current national weather-detection system — called the National Mesonet Program — and help local officials issue timely evacuation warnings, Peverill said.
“A system like ours is like a ‘Mesonet enhanced,’” Peverill said. “You can gather data throughout the atmosphere between Mesonet stations and deliver a much more dense matrix of data that can be used to enhance predictions.”
