Residents in leafy suburb of the Greek capital have united this summer to prevent the nightmare of towering, deadly wildfires from reaching their homes
Volunteer firefighters sit in their unit, in the northern suburb of Nea Erithrea, Athens, Greece, Thursday, Aug. 10, 2023. Greece is plagued by hundreds of wildfires each summer. To protect their area from potentially deadly blazes, a group of residents from a suburb in northern Athens have joined forces to hire a company using long-range drones equipped with thermal imaging cameras and a sophisticated early warning system to catch fires before they can spread.
Operated by drone pilots with advanced training to fly beyond the visual line of sight and with permission from civil aviation authorities, the drones provide live images and detect changes in temperature, alerting their handlers in the critical early stages before a fire spreads. The drones run 24/7, with pilots working in six-hour shifts.
Right from the start, the drone program's value was apparent. In the first couple of days after the drone system was installed, a fire broke out near a shuttered hotel in the area, Dertilis said. “We didn’t discover it, we created it,” Kontantellos said of the program. “We said, ‘Why shouldn’t this capability exist?’”
The fire department already uses drones during an active blaze, covering a small area. What was needed was to see a fire right at the start, and stop it in its tracks.
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