Conservation/Rescue

DRONES AND MAPS Drones are crucial to the future of fire fighting and rescue. The following presentations are embedded herein to emphasize this point. DRONE OPERATIONS MAPPING FOR EMERGENCIES

THERMAL IMAGING The initial test flight of the thermal drone shows images from the three main modes: White Hot Black Hot Rainbow This is an image of a field at night right after the sun went down. So much heat is radiating from the ground it is hard to discern the cattle walking about upon it. This is why this type of thermal isn't best for location operations. These are Black Hot Thermal images. The cattle stand out really well in this image. So does my truck. This is why Black hot is one of the primary search and rescue thermal settings.   White Hot is the other primary search and rescue thermal setting.  Again, you can clearly see the imagery.  And these are from a small thermal camera. During day light hours it is twice as defined because both of the drones cameras work in concert to blend the imagery into a vivid photo. So, the colored thermal images are best used to pinpoint large heat signatures or heat signatures that are not surrounded by massive heat sources causing inter

DRONES IN FIRE/RESCUE Thermal drones are important to the future of fire fighting. They are capable of seeing through smoke with such clarity that the smoke doesn't even show up on the drone's feed. They can accurately tell fire fighters the state of structural integrity a structure is in. They can accurately define fire flow paths within buildings and in open fields and forested areas. They can observe wet lines and send data back to the drone operators telling how effective the wet lines are. They can easily detect hot spots that need to be dealt with. Drones in general are invaluable tools for first responders. The aerial views, and the clarity provided, give clear, useful data that is immediately actionable. You can see exactly what the fire is doing, where it is heading, and how best to attack it to put it out with the most efficiency.  A few aerial shots from my own drones prove these points:  

IMAGINE That a disaster has occurred. One that destroys buildings, floods neighborhoods or burns them to the ground... As things stand now responders react and move in to save lives. They do what they can with the technology they have.  Over the course of months or, in some cases years, authorities and NGOs attempt to bring the communities stricken back to life. IMAGINE A FUTURE Where things can be done faster and better. Bridges can be built in a matter of hours or days... Private companies can come into disaster zones and build homes immediately... During and immediately after disasters strike people have to be rescued. This is the most important part of the whole disaster response--saving human lives. What if technology that already exists could make doing this quicker and better??? What if drones were actually used to get people over collapsed or flooded areas? What if a Google Glass or Holo Lens Helmet could help rescu

WHAT STANDS AGAINST THE STORMS Right now it is COVID-19. What will be humanity's next challenge? Should we even talk about things to come while we are still in the midst of the present crisis? A decision not to panic. A decision to be mindful of events around us but not let the events overwhelm us. Seeing positives where everyone else sees negatives. A chance to grow. Not a time to wither. When everyone else flees.  Go forward. Backward is only a temporary maneuver that gets us going forward again from a different direction. Some of the storms we face are murderous ones full of bombs, bullets and human brutality. But until we are stopped by them we go on. Lightening descends, winds blow, waters rise and consume, fires rage and obliterate. Into them we go. Evil Empires rise. They build legacies on bones-the bones of the innocent. They hold our whole world in fear. Until we expend our own lives to stop them. Our world is violent.

LOST IN THE DARK The problem with knowledge is there is so much of it. And it is everywhere. How can you learn, how can you know, it all?? Some people do the wrong thing because doing the right thing, where they are from, is perceived as being just to hard. Sometimes. All the time. And maybe it's just that doing the right thing, where they are from, can get you killed. I could be wrong about this. Some people do everything, that is within their power to do, right and things still go horribly wrong for them. Is it all the result of some elaborate ancient curse bestowed on an ancestor for doing something wrong? Or is it some other form of thought contagion. Thought confetti. Images and information blown out in all directions. So all we see is the glowing orb in the sky. The image that tells us there is something else we should probably be focusing on. Instead of focusing on the darkness, that we can't seem to see through, all around us.