UST sat down with Dirk Giles, National UAS Program Manager for the US Forest Service, to discuss the innovative use of Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) in forestry management and wildfire control. Dirk gives us an informative understanding of the agency’s rigorous pilot training efforts, the high level of trust between piloted aviation and UAS operations, and the critical importance of communication and coordination in maintaining operational awareness.
There is also a fascinating look at the agency’s unique partnerships with UAS manufacturers, their one-stop-shop solution to maintenance and tracking through AlarisPro, and the balance between technological investment and supporting the dedicated professionals who operate this equipment in intensely challenging environments.
Thank you so much for talking with us today. Could you talk us through an overview of how the US Forestry Service has integrated drones into forestry and wildfire management?
My pleasure, but more importantly thank you for the opportunity to discuss the US Forest Service UAS program. Wildland fire management definitely gathers more than its fair share of interest, but our program is also integrated into many other mission sets throughout the agency to support our resource management objectives; timber, hydrology, reforestation, recreation, nursery programs, heritage, forest health, engineering/inspection, and many others.
Wildland fire along with prescribed fire, UAS are becoming more and more integral to those missions. I personally flew one of the first wildland fires on Forest Service lands about 8 years ago and the change culturally from an acceptance standpoint along with the technologies that were leveraged have exponentially increased in capability today.
“Thermal sensors are definitely the primary use case within fire management to enable on-the-ground decision makers to implement more informed strategies and tactics based on their real-time surrounding environmental situation.”
We are also using UAS with other payloads to support the fire mission. For example, we have a payload from Drone Amplified called the Ignis II, which is a system that attaches to the Freefly Alta X that we use to supplement our aerial ignition missions when our traditional aviation assets cannot fly or, more importantly, when the risk is too high for them to fly. The risk transfer from piloted aviation to UAS is a fascinating aspect of my job and we can really start to see the return on investment from projects on the ground being completed, but also managing risk at an appropriate and acceptable level.
UAS Pilots launching a UAS to support crews with infrared flights. Photo Credit: Mike McMillan/USFS
How do drones improve the safety and efficiency of wildfire monitoring and suppression efforts?
Forest Service aviation was established in 1919 and a lot of evolution has occurred over the last 105 years across all program areas. Specific to UAS, the agency has been leveraging these types of technologies since the early 2000s. A lot of those early missions were leveraging partnerships with other federal agencies to determine how these new tools could support the agency’s vast mission sets and were mostly focused within our remote sensing and geospatial program areas.
Since UAS are classified as an aviation asset, aviation has taken the lead with program establishment and expansion as well as the creation of policy, standards and acquisition. Essentially UAS is centralized within the agency to ensure that we as the Forest Service are adhering to all federal laws, regulations, policies and directives. With the FAA Part 107 being published it opened a new opportunity to leverage smaller UAS and more cost-effective systems that were consumer off-the-shelf types of technology, so that we could expand more rapidly across all mission areas versus having a larger platform that was located at one place at one time.
Two Forest Service UAS Pilots providing direct support to on the ground crews during active suppression operations.
Over the last three years the Forest Service has significantly ramped up training efforts across all regions to the point where we now have about 400 pilots and a similar number of platforms. It is important to note that training is taken very seriously and pilots must meet standardized syllabi to be carded as an agency UAS pilot. The FAA 107 along with multiple other classes are prerequisites prior to attending agency sponsored UAS flight schools that are two weeks in duration.
Additional training, skills, and competencies must occur as the mission becomes more complex. For example, it may take a newly trained pilot a year and a half, to three years, to reach our most complex training academy of aerial ignitions and then further carding and approval of that mission. With all of that said, safety is achieved through training and strict adherence to standards. The mission is achieved through the standards but also strong mentorship to ensure trainees have the best classroom and on-the-job training available to make them successful when they are operating in the field under the operational control of the agency.
The airspace above a wildfire is a very complex, challenging, and busy environment. Integrating new tools within this cultural environment is a challenge and one we take very seriously. Our sister agencies within the Department of Interior definitely got the mission moving forward in the early years and now the acceptance is quite smooth. Most importantly the adherence to standardized scripts and radio brevity is key since we are integrating with piloted aviation assets routinely and the margin of error is small.
“The trust climate between piloted aviation and UAS within wildland fire is high and something that we take beyond seriously.”
More specific to how UAS or drones are improving the safety and efficiency of wildfire varies upon the mission. Our UAS pilots and modules can integrate seamlessly into any functional area of the incident command structure, but in the end it is still an aviation asset so communication and coordination with the Air Operations Branch Director is key. Furthermore, every trained pilot is hyper-aware of the incident’s operational tempo and of the overall environment, so if a request has come in for a basic recon of an area, but simultaneously there are multiple tankers dropping retardant on the edge in near proximity, then that is probably not the best time to request an airspace clearance.
The UAS mission on any emergency event comes down to a core competency that everyone needs to be aware of. If the mission is not communicated, coordinated, and deconflicted then it will not occur. The training standards drill this into the trainees. If a UAS module is supporting multiple hotshot crews burning and holding a containment line, or a larger fixed-wing UAS asset is performing overwatch, prior to every mission launch it must be communicated, coordinated, and deconflicted.
What does your drone fleet look like in terms of variety and capabilities and how many drones do you currently operate?
Prior to the Forest Service starting our acquisition process, we made some hard decisions at the time to redirect our intent towards a domestic investment strategy. Essentially we wanted to partner with a manufacturer more than just being a customer so that potentially we assist in making the product better to ultimately better meet our end state utilization. Initially out-the-gate we were looking for modularity and the ability to change sensors so the system was an 80% solution for most missions that we would be performing. Since then more specific applications with very targeted requirements were sought.
“We have a need for a smaller flying camera to support basic training and mapping missions, medium size for sensor modularity, and larger platforms for carrying heavier payloads or multiple sensors simultaneously.”
At the current programmatic state our UAS program is a strong supplement to our piloted programs. But most importantly our relationships with our manufacturers is something that I am proud of.
The teams at Freefly, Vision Aerial, Drone Amplified and more, are all integral partners to our mission. Like I said earlier, we don’t want to just procure products that support the domestic industry, we want to be a partner so manufacturers can understand how we are using their products and then we can utilize feedback loops that in the end support each other.
The Freefly Alta X and Drone Amplified Ignis II payload about to support aerial ignition operations for a wildfire incident. UAS Pilots launching a UAS to support crews with infrared flights. Photo Credit: Mike McMillan/USFS
What software or systems do you use for managing and tracking your drone fleet, both annually and on a day-to-day basis?
This is a great question and thank you for asking it. The Forest Service UAS Program has robust airworthiness standards that adhere to ASTM requirements. Continued airworthiness for us was the next massive hurdle to overcome since the UAS industry is not yet aligned with traditional piloted aviation. For example, if a part is time or cycle limited but is not serialized then how is that tracked? Some other aspects that we needed to figure out were how do we build a foundation programmatically to ensure that the investments within the equipment and people were adhering to standards and meeting policy? How do we know that the proper maintenance, inspection, or return to service were performed by a qualified individual and how was that tracked in a log and then available to a different pilot if they were to fly that system days, months, or years later? How do we know our pilots are meeting our recently increased currency and proficiency requirements? From a software and system perspective we found a one stop shop for the aircraft and the pilot within AlarisPro.
“From a software and system perspective we found a one stop shop for the aircraft and the pilot within AlarisPro.”
We did not want to have a separate tracking tool for every programmatic aspect and we sought out a single source to manage the fleet, maintenance, and pilot. We are very proud supporters of AlarisPro and as we are onboarding our national and regional Avionics Inspectors the utility of this tool has far-reaching impacts. Working an accident backwards to the mission we now know in real-time when the last PM check was and who did it, along with overall flight time, time on componentry, any maintenance performed and return to service actions, as well as how many hours the pilot had with that particular make and model.
AlarisPro Drone Fleet Management Software
From a national perspective the ease of report pulling for our latest statistical data is seamless since UAS are quite political and everyone wants to know how much we’ve flown within a certain mission use code or overall. In the past, myself and several others would have to mine thousands of lines of excel data for something that I can now query in real-time. The pilot and fleet management aspects of AlarisPro have propelled the agency forward to meet and adhere to our policies as well as ensuring that we are providing the best products to our field-based collateral duty pilots. We can now track trends in real time which is a beyond powerful tool.
How do you see the role of drones in forestry and wildfire management evolving over the next 5–10 years?
This is an interesting question. I say that since I knew 5 years ago we would be along our strategic plan somewhere, but I would not have expected for us to be where we are now so rapidly. With the rapid evolution of this industry, thinking programmatically as well as strategically with a 5 to 10 or 20 year lens is difficult.
Last year all of the Forest Service National and Regional UAS staff put a tremendous amount of effort into our Support Mission Strategy that essentially was a 5 year vision, but leaning on a 10 year lens. Having these types of strategic processes in place are an excellent tool to ensure that work, time, and efforts are focused on the appropriate topic. We are reaping the benefits of last year’s work and every year we as a committee vote on what the priority scopes of work will be for the coming fiscal and calendar year. The strategy remains the same, but the annual scope of work may shift. What we collectively see, the evolution over the next 3-6yrs will be occurring within the people or the pilots and support staffing.
“If we can professionalize the pilot then we can increase the complexities of the vehicle while overall maintaining risk at the most appropriate level.”
99% of our trained agency pilots are collateral duty, meaning they have another day job that is their focus and UAS is secondary. The collateral duty workforce has made tremendous progress in firmly establishing the program where it is today, and I see a future of a militia-based workforce being key, but not the primary. The complexities of the aircraft, sensors and payloads are only increasing, as well as our currency and proficiency policies. If we can professionalize the pilot then we can increase the complexities of the vehicle while overall maintaining risk at the most appropriate level.
I see a future where UAS will become more and more widespread within forestry and wildfire management than what it is now. Furthermore, as agency leadership, I believe that it is our duty to intentionally balance the equipment and training investment to not lose focus on the people doing the actual work. In the end, people are our most valuable investment and they are operating this equipment in some of the most harsh environments and within extreme environmental parameters.
Are there any new drone technologies or innovations on the horizon that you are particularly excited about?
There are many, but where do we as a federal agency focus our efforts to gather the largest return on investment? Previously I mentioned the industry evolution as well as some of our strategy and all of this is moving forward, but most importantly we have to invest in our people as well. New technologies are amazing and what they could do to support our mission, but if we don’t have the people to operate and maintain, then there was no point in the initial investment.
I am excited to see the potential of increasing vehicle complexity so that UAS can move from a supplement within our piloted portfolio to a full replacement – important to note though, within some missions! Piloted aviation will always have a primary role, but for the dull, dirty, and dangerous missions, I would like to see within the remainder of my career UAS fully replace these missions. Transferring risk from piloted aviation to a UAS is a motivator for myself and many of my staff and a driving force to make change happen daily. Programmatically, we are starting to look at larger systems as well as envisioning partnerships to make this a reality. However, the professionalization of the equipment and people must move in tandem.
Thank you so much for your time today, it has been really fascinating to learn about your work and we will continue to watch your advancements with great interest.
I appreciate that! Thank you for your time and the opportunity.
