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When one thinks of the word dirty, mud might come to mind or even
a little kid who has just finished eating spaghetti. On a few large
fires this summer the words Distributed Real-time Infrared, better
known as DRTI and pronounced dirty, meant something completely
different to the firefighters on the ground. This Air National Guard
platform allowed interagency firefighters and commanders the ability
to have real time infrared imagery at their fingertips.
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August 2016 - Idaho Air National Guard Airmen from the 124th Air
Support Operations Squadron provided real time aerial infrared
imagery to interagency fire fighters in Monterey County, California
on the Soberanes. The platform and mission they were supporting is
known as the Distributed Real-time Infrared platform and Washington
and Idaho Air National Guardsmen support the mission. (U.S. Air
National Guard photo by Master Sgt. Joshua Allmaras)
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The packaged capability is comprised of two sections, an aerial
and ground team. The aerial section flies in an RC-26 which provides
the overhead imagery products while the ground section breaks up
into smaller teams and works directly with various customers on the
ground.
“We are serving two distinct sets of customers,” said Lt Col.
Shawn Scott, the DRTI program manager. “At the tactical level we are
providing real time video directly down to the supported commander,
be those division commanders or branch commanders. These equate to
squadron or group commanders in the Air Force. We come in and
provide them with initial products such as the perimeter of the
fire. It gives them the eyes they don't necessarily have due to the
tremendous amount of smoke in the atmosphere, or because of the
terrain, or even the vegetation.”
This information is critical to the firefighters on the ground.
"There is a lot of value in having your folks on the ground.
Being able to have eyes in areas you don't have really good eyes on
due to smoke and visibility, and knowing exactly where the fire has
progressed," said Billy Gardunio, a forest fire management
specialist who flew in the back of the RC-6 aircraft as a subject
matter expert.
The frontline firefighter on the ground is not the only customer
for this mission.
“Our second customer is on the strategic side,” said Scott. “We
take all those fire perimeters we have been collecting and we
transmit them in near real time via email back to the planners at
the command post, the ICP (incident command post), so they have the
most current map available for their planning cycle.”
One of the unique capabilities of the National Guard is the
ability to take their wartime mission skillsets and adapt them to
benefit the homeland.
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August 2016 - Idaho Air National Guard Airmen from the 124th Air
Support Operations Squadron provided real time aerial infrared
imagery to interagency fire fighters in Monterey County, California
on the Soberanes. The platform and mission they were supporting is
known as the Distributed Real-time Infrared platform and Washington
and Idaho Air National Guardsmen support the mission. (U.S. Air
National Guard photo by Master Sgt. Joshua Allmaras)
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"One of the big things about the aircrew was their experience and
expertise,” said Gardunio. “Having worked FLIR (forward looking
infrared) for less than 25 hours and to be able to see someone who
had over 10,000 hours of sensor time, and the ability for their eye
to pick up on stuff rather quickly was very cool."
There is a great value being able to support the firefighters.
“You guys are another source of info,” said Jeff Ohs, branch two
director from Long Beach Fire. “You can't put a value on this type
of intel, especially from the safety aspect.”
There have been many successes during this activation.
“One of the most incredible successes we had with people in the
state was supporting law enforcement,” said Scott. “When they
initiated large areas of evacuations there were hundreds of miles of
really gnarly, rocky, dirt roads in which deputies in Boise County
were going to be responsible for evacuating campers. The evacuation
orders came out on a Saturday, which is a bad time in the summer. We
found that we could use the sensor to sweep those areas and make
sure there were no campers back there. We accomplished their mission
in three hours, which we were told would have taken 24 man hours to
completely evacuate those backcountry roads, if they could.”
One of the biggest fire detection successes was in California.
“On the Sobaranes Fire we identified a large spot fire,” said
Scott. “This was a big deal because the fire significantly
accelerated when the firefighters were going to take tactical
actions on the ground. They had a strategy to back burn, but they
thought they had more time. When we called to do the debrief, it
sounded very busy in the background. The operations chief said,
‘it's a madhouse here because we are accelerating our timeframe for
beginning burn operations based on the information you provided,
that we had no idea about.' The fire was a lot closer than they had
anticipated.”
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August 2016 - Idaho Air National Guard Airmen from the 124th Air
Support Operations Squadron provided real time aerial infrared
imagery to interagency fire fighters in Monterey County, California
on the Soberanes. The platform and mission they were supporting is
known as the Distributed Real-time Infrared platform and Washington
and Idaho Air National Guardsmen support the mission. (U.S. Air
National Guard photo by Master Sgt. Joshua Allmaras)
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Timely information is critical in firefighting.
“With the Forest Service we have a NIROPS (National Infrared
Operations) infrared ship that flies at night that gives us an
update on fire size and intensity, but you have to wait until the
next night for an update,” said Gardunio. “This asset [DRTI]
provided a more timely update of what the fire was doing during the
peak burning hours.”
The DRTI asset has been in a proof of concept phase until this
year, when the Forest Service provided money to support the mission.
This is the first fire season it has been officially used to support
interagency firefighters. As with most missions there are specific
objectives.
“The objective isn't for the Air National Guard to show that we
can come out and be the provider of something nobody else can do,”
said Scott. “The overall objective of this program is to showcase
capabilities that we have been using in the close air support
community for over a decade now that potentially have applications
in the wildland firefighting mission. We stand by and are ready to
help if called, but that's not the overall objective.”
The IDANG has received a lot of support through this whole
process.
“I really appreciate the support we have received from the
interagency community at NIFC (National Interagency Fire Center) and
the Forest Service,” said Scott. “We have taken this from the good
idea fairy stage to the point that I have guys on the mountain
helping firefighters and that has taken a lot of key people.”
The DRTI platform has been used in support of fires in both Idaho
and California this past summer.
By U.S. Air National Guard Master Sgt. Joshua Allmaras
Provided
through DVIDS
Copyright 2016
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