Montgomery County Emergency Management Director Brian Hamman reports, that through donations by local community foundations and grants, Montgomery County Emergency Management Agency (MCEMA) has received thermal imaging technology for their small unmanned aerial vehicle system (or, drone). The small and effective camera will provide an aerial view of dangerous situations, emergency incidents and provide live streaming video back to incident commanders and ground crews. Hamman says there are many useful applications for this camera including fire incidents, damage assessment, search and rescue missions and law enforcement applications such as large-scale area searches for wanted and missing persons. The camera will also allow authorities to fly during nighttime hours, whereas before, they were restricted to daylight hours, making it available 24 hours a day.

According to Hamman, “Officer safety is our number one goal and by having this camera and being equipped with this technology, we cannot only search a large area in a shorter time frame, we can also provide officers with live information from the command post and direct those resources in safely and effectively.”

Images from a November training exercise with area law enforcement K9 teams to show off the newly acquired FLIR/Thermal Camera technology with a small unmanned aerial vehicle(drone). (MCEMA photos)

The total cost of the camera was $10,500 and was completely funded by generous donations and grants from the E. F. Sylvia Schildberg Foundation, Montgomery County Community Foundation, Mid-American Energy Foundation and the Alliant Energy Foundation.

While the thermal imaging camera is just one part of the drone system, it offers one authorities another tool that enables better service to citizens and area first respondersm during dangerous and high-risk incidents to ensure everyone is safe and goes home at the end of an incident. The MCEMA drone system has been in operation for over one year and has already been used to provide aerial views of large structure fires, missing person searches as well as local law enforcement K-9 training. The drone is available to all area counties through mutual aid requests and 28E agreements.