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THE NATIONAL PARKS and Wildlife Service, along with Coillte, are to roll out a drone operation over the summer months to monitor and fight forest fires.
It is the second year the technology will be used to monitor designated ‘hot spots’ across regions of Dublin, Wicklow and the Midlands.
The drones will be equipped with cameras that peer through smoke, as well as sensors for wind direction and other weather variables that affect how fires spread.
They can then capture continuous footage of areas deemed as high risk and spot small fires that otherwise could not have been detected until they had become much larger and harder to contain.
Only last month, fire crews were dispatched to gorse fires which swept through the Wicklow mountains.
During summer months, gorse fires become even more common, due to warmer weather, drier land, and the increase of human activity.
The Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht at the time suggested the fire was a result of illegal burning of rubbish and other materials.
“As well as having severe localised impact on flora and fauna, setting fires during this time of a national public health emergency is particularly reckless as it places unnecessary additional pressures on our emergency services whose services are critical to managing the Covid-19 pandemic,” Minister Josepha Madigan said.
Deborah Meghen, director of stewardship, risk and advocacy at semi-state forestry company, Coillte, said the use of drones has helped to reduce the number of fires in recent years.
“Last year we used this technology for forest fire protection, which resulted in a significant reduction in forest fires with just over 50 reported, down from 150 in 2018,” she said.
“This represents a very good year in terms of forest damage with only 25 hectares affected, compared with over 600 hectares damaged in 2018.”
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If the land catches fire it should be subject to no grazing for 2 years
@John O Reilly: why would that be
@anycraic: it would stop farmers from burning land to clear it for grazing. If they can’t graze on it for two years then they would be less likely to set fires
@Y U no spell good?: how do you expect to make sheep graze the unburnt sections over those 2 year?
@Y U no spell good?: you should head up the hills at times n you will see it not just farmers setting these of
The damage done to the forests is financial as very little wildlife(bar insects) live in the type of Sitka Spruce forestry in Ireland. However the damage done by fire to gorse, heather amd boglands is immence with the loss of breeding birds and their nesting areas along with insects, frogs, butterflies and little things we’ve never heard of. While farmers get blamed for a lot of the fires, I think most are caused by blatant fire starters, who are not farmers, and some by accident or heedlessness.
@James Gannon: yes I know for sure it’s not always farmers
And as say it not much of a financial loss as v little trees are damaged as there mostly coniferous and as say green meaning not dried out like you would see in US or OZ
Love how the hills spontaneously combust when it gets over 13 degrees. Sheep are amazingly dexterous with those matches.
They are a very good eye in the sky in order to assist the fire services in fighting fires and spotting them in isolated areas before they get out of control. Civil Defence drones have already assisted various agencies over the past few years.
@George Vladisavljevic: I thought you were talking about the public there for a second
Ad brought to you by Irish Water! Please allow us a pay by usage mode,l so X person can privatise later!
Hope they have infra red and are deployed on a regular basis might catch some of the individuals who start fires
They should ask some of the sheep farmer in lacken/ballyknockan for some guidance here. Almost clairvoyant it seems. Magically the same farmers manage to get their sheep off the hills before the fires spontaneously combust. The could give the fire crews a heads up on where the fires might come from :/ . Sad thing is that countless locals have seen the fires lit but won’t report
what forests? we don’t have any.
Can drones really help or is it more boys with toys? Great with teir new technology… But dose it actually help.
I know where it was used to locat dumping behind unauthorised halting site…. Guess wgmhat they found? Yeah dumping doh!
Caught nó one prosecuted no one but got a headline and a day playing with toys
Dummies we are paying for it.
@Aidan Conway: If you can get an aerial view of a fire, which is a dynamic situation, responders can react as the fire changes direction. So yes it is helpful and a really useful tool to add to the firefighters kit
@David McGuigan: OK to a point…
Wind direction more useful.
Stop paying out EU and Agri grants in areas of repeated set fires and killing of birds of pray
Dones surveying the skies, police checkpoints on every slip road, I like where we’re headed.
Great work. I was also thinking about the homeless sleeping rough in forested areas.
@Fiona Fitzgerald: I’d say you were alright
So, the National Parks and Wildlife Service, along with Coillte are apparently to “roll out a drone operation over the summer months to monitor and fight forest fires”, for the second year running. This tale of toys for boys follows another story just over a week ago where Wexford County Council were featured, and was also included in an RTE piece showing very detailed aerial images of a holiday homes and caravan park in Wexford. And the reason Wexford Council’s Environment Department has a fleet of drones in this instance was to monitor the beaches and holiday homes in the county to ensure that people (presumably from outside Wexford) were not travelling in defiance of the Covid-19 restrictions! At the time, it was stated that the Council often shares footage with the Gardai. This bizarre excursion resulted in the discovery that there was no mass invasion of Wexford. Indeed, instead it proved that there was a remarkable level of compliance with the current travel restrictions.
Who’s paying for this nonsense? I think it is entirely inappropriate for Wexford County Council to film and assist in the broadcast of detailed aerial images of private properties or people on beaches for that matter. Also, I believe it is the sole prerogative of the Gardai to monitor and enforce laws relating to Covid-19. No County Council ought to be monitoring beaches, traffic movements or holiday homes ever. It is clearly an example of over-reach. It might also suggest that Wexford might not be such a holiday friendly location this year? More importantly, it clearly puts property owners depicted at serious risk of burglary, to mention just one element as to why this ought not happen.
Regarding the urgent need to provide firefighters with intelligence regarding gorse and forest fires. Just another example of people with over generous budgets and over-reach. If there is such a need, firefighters and not the Wildlife Service surely need to be provided with these surveillance items.
Currently there are over 10,000 drones registered and the number is rising faster than you can say coronavirus. One looney idea being propagated at the moment is that we can expect 50,000 flights in urban areas during the rest of 2020 delivering pizzas, curries and no doubt, pints shortly thereafter. Fellow readers, we are being softened up to accept universal surveillance. The space above our heads is ours and ought not be infested by fleets of noisy 5-kg objects flying at some 50kph that will cause massive disturbance to our peace and inevitably cause severe damage to persons and property beneath them, as they fail. Further, the potential for misuse of drones by those with more criminal intent, given they usually have on-board cameras, and can be weaponised and also can be used to deliver ‘contraband’, is obvious. It is time for a moratorium on these flying time-bombs and for proper legislation to be introduced to protect our safety and privacy.
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