Fire brigade to introduce drones to its fleet

Mumbai: The Mumbai fire brigade has planned to introduce a drone to their fleet to help douse fires in high-rises

Mumbai: The Mumbai fire brigade has planned to introduce a drone to their fleet to help douse fires in high-rises.

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The drone will be utilised when fire engines are unable to reach the spot due to traffic congestion. The drone will be enabled to give an aerial view and take photos of the top floors of the high-rise. Its capacity to spray small quantities of water will also help in dousing flames to a degree.

A senior fire official said there are plans to buy such drones on a pilot basis. The drones will be able to scale heights up to 20 floors, carrying a total weight of 100 kg and will be able to spray water up to a 20-metre distance. “Last Wednesday, there was a demonstration of the drone. We are not buying them just for high-rises. We are well equipped with hydraulic ladders that can access heights of 80 and 90-metres, but there are bigger challenges from traffic because big fire engines cannot reach the spots on time,” he said.

“The drones are small and can be taken in small vehicles that can reach faster. It will help locate victims, sighting of the upper floors and indicate where the smoke is, where the location of the door is and how many persons are stranded on which floor,” he explained. The drone will be purchased by inviting tenders and following due process shortly.

The Mumbai fire brigade had approached the department of aerospace, IIT-B, for developing a drone two years ago. It wanted the drone to reach up to 250-300 metres and have a camera that provides an aerial view of the building with a capacity to carry water and spray it at the speed of 300 litres per minute. Though the now-developed drone does not have all these requirements and it will be tweaked as per the demands.

Under a new project, Programme for Enhancement of Emergency Response (PEER), various projects have been taken up to upgrade infrastructure and capability, with an allocation of ₹176.40 crore for plant and machinery and ₹50.67 crore for construction of new fire stations. Plans are also afoot to set up an Integrated Command and Control System, which will be a mirror of the existing command centre in Byculla, at the fire department’s Borivali Command Centre.

From proposing to purchase two firefighting robots, the budget this year had included procurement of drones for firefighting, surveillance and assessment. Additionally, 22 quick response vehicles will also be purchased and allocated to the 24 civic wards to reduce response time. For capacity building of the firefighters, a state-of-the-art drill tower-cum-multi utility training simulator at Thakur Village fire station in Kandivali East will be set up by the civic body.