The Grand Forks Fire Department has been given the okay to use drones for “tactical beyond the line of sight” matters.
The department is the first in North Dakota to receive that permission.
It is to be used in emergency situations.
"We can't just go check out a neighborhood, and fly beyond visual sight," said Grand Forks Fire Chief Gary Lorenz. "It's for emergency situations, where we may need to get beyond what a pilot can see."
Lorenz said, for example, the back side of a large building, or looking for a missing person.
"A lot of times, we get calls for the Red River here in town, for somebody possibly in the river," Lorenz said. "We can fly the river corridor and get beyond line of sight, looking for that person."
Lorenz said the department has one drone. And he said for most incidents, they do not need “beyond the line of sight.”
"The last few months, we used it at a propane tank fire, we've used it at an asphalt mixing plant fire, we used it at a semi that split in half, going over the railroad tracks, hauling asphalt," Lorenz said. "For all of those incidents, it did not need to go beyond the line of sight."
Lorenz said his department has partnered with the Northern Plains Test Site in Grand Forks, and with Vantis. He said they are also working on a project called “drone as first responder.”
"We have fire stations strategically spread out around town," Lorenz said. "We could launch a drone autonomously to an incident, and stream video back to responders, who are arriving on scene," Lorenz said.
