By Sigifredo Castro
Earlier this year, Queen Creek Fire responded to an automatic-aid structure fire in Gold Canyon, Arizona. During operations, thermal imaging from the drone showed significant heat building in the attic space, while the aerial view also revealed visible sagging of the roof. Those two factors indicated to the incident commander that the structure was becoming unstable. Crews were moved out of the collapse zone, and about one minute later, the structure partially collapsed.
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A tool that had to prove its value
That call answers the question I heard most often when I started building a drone program at Queen Creek Fire & Medical Department: Why do we need this? It was a fair question. Drones were still emerging as a public safety tool and were more often viewed as “nice to have” rather than an operational tool for the fireground.
In many ways, the early questions were not only about drones. They reflected the fire service’s natural caution toward change. That caution is rooted in tradition, which carries forward lessons learned through generations of experience. It also means any new tool has to earn trust on the fireground, especially when the problem it addresses isn’t always as obvious as it was during the Gold Canyon incident.
The goal was not to replace experience or judgment. It was to give firefighters and incident commanders a clearer view of the conditions in front of them. After all, every firefighter has faced incidents where critical decisions must be made with incomplete information. Historically, there hasn’t been another option. The more I worked with drones, the more I realized they could help close that gap.
Building something that didn’t exist yet
What I quickly learned is that building a formal unmanned aircraft system (UAS) program takes far more work than most see from the outside, especially in the early stages when the capability still has to prove its value. Writing FAA waivers, navigating airspace regulations, training pilots to a professional standard and maintaining a fleet all require significant work behind the scenes.
Building the program required collaboration with manufacturers, technology companies, neighboring agencies and public safety professionals across the country who were willing to share lessons learned and push the industry forward.
Just as important, the program moved forward because people within Queen Creek were willing to ask the right questions, evaluate the capability, and support its integration with safety, compliance and operational value in mind. Building something new requires more than technology; it requires an organization willing to look at problems differently and a department willing to empower its people to find solutions.
Over time, Queen Creek obtained multiple FAA authorizations, including both a Certificate of Waiver and a Certificate of Authorization, allowing the department to conduct UAS missions under both Part 107 and Part 91 public aircraft operations, depending on the mission and operational requirements. These approvals have also expanded the department’s ability to conduct certain beyond visual line of sight operations and integrate UAS more effectively into emergency response
One thing that came out of that was Dorothy, a vehicle-mounted drone as first responder (DFR) platform installed on a battalion chief vehicle. The idea was simple: If command vehicles are often among the first units to arrive, why not place aerial situational awareness directly with command?
The engineering challenges, however, were anything but simple. A dock system requires stable, continuous power, and fire apparatus are not designed to support that kind of electrical load. Building a reliable platform required extensive testing, redesigns, troubleshooting, lessons learned and constant refinement before it was ready for operational use.
The result attracted attention because it was different. But really, Dorothy was simply another way to shorten the gap between arriving on scene and having a usable picture of what we were dealing with.
Incident command and beyond
Drones don’t replace decision-making. Incident commanders still rely on experience, training and sound fireground judgment. What they get is another angle — roof conditions, hidden fire extension, collapse potential, where a patient is — that was previously unavailable or difficult to obtain. That’s an addition to size-up, not a replacement for it.
The mistake I see departments make is building the whole program around one mission — structure fire, search and rescue, or DFR. But the same aircraft used on a structure fire also supports fire investigations, orthomosaic mapping, 3D modeling, pre-incident planning and disaster documentation. We’ve used drones on hazmat calls to identify hazards without putting anyone close to them, and on mountain rescues to locate patients and find access routes.
As the program demonstrated its value across a wider range of incidents, acceptance within the department grew. The question changed from, “Why do we need a drone?” to “Can we get the drone responding to this call?” That didn’t come from presentations, statistics or sales pitches. It came from firefighters and command staff seeing it work on real calls.
Advice for departments looking to start
Start with the problem you’re trying to solve, not the aircraft you want to buy. Departments that succeed invest in training, policy development, FAA compliance and operational integration.
Bring data and documented operational results to department leadership, command staff and others involved in supporting the program. Showing where the aircraft improved situational awareness, reduced risk to personnel or helped crews make faster decisions makes it easier to demonstrate the value of the program beyond simply talking about the technology
Involve command staff early, and build relationships with neighboring agencies.
You don’t need a large department or a fleet. Some of the best programs I know started with one drone and a small group of people willing to learn. One aircraft and one trained pilot is enough to matter on a structure fire, a missing person or a hazmat call. Queen Creek started with a single objective: Get better information to firefighters and incident commanders, faster.
The future of fire service UAS
The next evolution of public safety drones isn’t simply putting more aircraft in the air. It’s integrating aerial intelligence directly into incident command.
Technology will continue to evolve, aircraft will improve, batteries will last longer, and remote operations will expand. But the most important element of any successful program isn’t the aircraft. It’s the people.
On that Gold Canyon call, someone had to look at a thermal image and decide to pull crews. The drone didn’t make that call. It made sure the person making it could see what was happening.
Departments that benefit most won’t necessarily be those with the largest budgets or newest equipment. They’ll be the ones that invest in training, integration and trust in the information being delivered.
The technology is here. The capability has proven its value. The question is no longer whether drones belong in the fire service. The question is how departments will choose to use them.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sigifredo Castro is a firefighter with Queen Creek Fire & Medical Department in Arizona, where he has helped develop and expand the department’s UAS program. He also brings 13 years of Army aviation experience, which has helped shape his approach to airspace awareness, aircraft operations and safety. Castro’s work focuses on integrating drones into real-world fire and emergency operations, including incident command, search and rescue, hazmat incidents and drone as first responder (DFR) capabilities.
