there is no issue in detecting. You sweep the area. The IR sources like a tank - pops up like Xmas tree even on relatively cheap IR from 10km (there is a lot of footage from Ukraine war for example). A house fire would easily pop-up even from tens of km. A acre size fire - it would pop-up even on coarse grain IR from space.
I'm pretty sure 20 tons of water would douse a house fire. It would take 10 flights of an F8F Bearcat sized drone. Though the F8F is an overkill built for speed. One can carry 1-2 ton with much simpler plane today for that purpose.
An acre size fire - an acre-inch of water is 100 ton. So 10 drones 10 flights at 1 ton/drone.
For what? I’m familiar with very sensitive IR systems. I’m struggling to see the advantage of having them on drones versus satellites, particularly if the threshold is an entire house is on fire.
>I’m struggling to see the advantage of having them on drones versus satellites
An IR camera on drone can be fine-grain controlled from the ground when needed - say zoom-in from a 100km on something detected in the sweep like even a camp-fire so you can confirm whether it is a starting wildfire or just a camp-fire - that of course requires hardware like on those pricey military drones, yet it is still a pocket change in this context. You can also much easily reroute the drone. Again, if you watch the drone war footage there is a lot of scenarios where satellite wouldn't work.
Detection is not the issue, fires in populated (i.e. costly to burn) areas are dispatched very quickly. All the LA fires were on Watch Duty at 1-5 acres in size. The problem is fighting them at that size, when they're on vertiginous terrain, and winds keep conventional (i.e. manned) aircraft grounded.
Yep firefighting is almost completely useless in remote areas which is where most of these fires start before they grow and threaten residential areas. It’s when they grow out of control away from infrastructure that they become a problem.
A class 1 fire truck (the big red ones used in sub/urban areas) and class 3 wildland off road trucks carry around 500 gallons of water which is a drop in the bucket. Fire hydrants on the other hand can supply 250-750 gallons per minute.
The best they can do is try to create firebreaks using bulldozers and other off road vehicles while preemptively dousing properties with water to defend them, because they’ll usually have road access. Doesn’t do a damn when Santa Ana winds are causing 90mph gusts that throw embers for hundreds of feet.
