Bots vs Blazes

In November 2018, a few days after California’s deadly Camp Fire started, Tom Calvert arrived on the scene. He’s a battalion chief at Menlo Park Fire Protection District in California. “Visibility was horrible,” he says. “It was incredibly smoky and very hard to breathe.” What he could see was devastation. “As far as you could see, on any street you went down, there was nothing. It was all burned down, all ash.”

Calvert didn’t arrive at this heartbreaking scene alone. His team brought along drones. These flying robots soared over burned areas, taking pictures. In one case, a search and rescue team was trying to figure out if a remote, mountainous area contained burned buildings. It would take the human crew half a day to hike there, Calvert says. So he offered to send a drone out first. It sent back the information that yes, the area contained many burned structures.