An airborne thermal imaging system promises to deliver real-time fire intelligence to incident controllers, helping them to efficiently deploy resources such as firefighters, fire trucks and firebombers.

‍FireFlight Technologies Pty Ltd, a fire mapping startup based at the University of South Australia’s Innovation & Collaboration Centre, has received A$100,000 in funding from the South Australian state government to trial its FireFlight system with the South Australian Country Fire Service (CFS) during the current fire season.

The FireFlight sensor system is mounted on a manned aircraft that is flown high over an active bushfire. It takes less than a minute to fly over the fire front, create the map of the fire and deliver it to the firefighting agency, allowing it to accurately track the fire’s path and potentially limit its destruction.

FireFlight founder and CEO Dr Paul Dare said the system had proved valuable to firefighting agencies during trials in Queensland and Tasmania, and the SA trial will be the first full, season-long trial of the system in Australia.

“The FireFlight system will deliver real-time fire intelligence to incident controllers, helping them to efficiently deploy resources such as firefighters, fire trucks and firebombers where they are really needed,” he said.

“The fire maps provided by the FireFlight system will show exactly where the fire is at that moment. The maps can be updated on a minute-by-minute basis, enabling the CFS to monitor the progression of the fire and better understand its behaviour."

“The current trial will be fully evaluated at the end of this fire danger season by our Fire Behavioural Analysis team within the CFS and our partner agencies,” CFS manager state air operations Nik Stanley said.

SA’s Minister for Emergency Services, Vincent Tarzia, said the trial is a part of “future-proofing” the state against bushfires alongside the CFS’s new trucks and state-of-the-art thermal imaging cameras, a new $80m Emergency Services Headquarters, and two Black Hawk helicopters now on call.

“This technology offers the possibility of improving how we respond to and control the threat posed by bushfires, better protecting people and property in bushfire prone areas,” added state Minister for Innovation and Skills, David Pisoni.

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