United Utilities is using heat-seeking drones to detect hotspots following the recent moorland fires across the region.
Despite the rain and drop in temperatures, United Utilities said there were still lingering pockets of heat on the moor, which could reignite.
“Bringing these fires under control has been a huge team effort which has seen our teams and other partners including the RSPB, Derbyshire Mountain Rescue, Peak District National Park and others working thousands of hours together alongside fire and rescue services for several weeks,” explained Lindsay Page, United Utilities’ lead for Water Services in Greater Manchester.
“Although there are no longer any visible flames and even with the recent rain, our teams are still out there every day. When fire burns on peatland, it can form pockets of heat underground and there is a risk of these re-igniting. Monitoring these from the ground is challenging as teams need to scan large areas for signs of smoke which can be difficult to spot.
“These new thermal imaging drones are game-changing as they pinpoint the problem areas so we can target our resources to the right place at the right time.”
During the peak of the blazes, several helicopters made 2,000 trips and distributed more than 20 million litres of water – the equivalent of eight Olympic sized swimming pools – to help bring the fires under control.
Fire and rescue services were also pumping water directly from reservoirs.
While the major incident has been scaled back, firefighting efforts are continuing in Dovestones and Tintwistle, which is why they’ve trained up members of the team to become drone pilots.
The tech will be flown across remote locations to scan large areas of moorland. Once hotspots are found, the GPS coordinates are shared so they can be extinguished.
“It is still a difficult task as team are working in very challenging terrain and carrying heavy loads of water with them but now they can head out knowing just where to go. It really is a case of X marks the spot,” continued Page.
“As well as helping them to be precise in targeting the areas that need attention, it also speeds things up a lot because they aren’t spending hours scanning for hotspots.”
The thermal drones will be used on an on-going basis for environmental monitoring, infrastructure assessments and support leakage detection.
