Drones in Fire Investigation - Introduction

[Clinton Carman]

Hello Everyone,

My name is Clinton Carman and I'm a Fire Investigator in Northern California. My father and I own a fire investigation business and are both professional drone pilots. In our line of work we have to enter buildings that have been involved with fire, may have undergone partial or complete collapse, or have to cover very large areas with wildfires. For all of these situations, the use of drones has made our lives much easier, and our work product much more detailed and advanced.

If you are in the area, or would like to learn more, let me know!

Thank you,
Clinton

 

[BigAl07]

I'm very interested to learn more about your line of work. Please share what you "Can" without giving away the Golden Egg per say.

Hello and welcome to the Commercial Drone Pilots forum. We are glad to have you on board. I'm confident you'll find lots of helpful and enlightening information throughout this forum.

If you haven't already done so, consider adding your LOCATION to your forum profile to help us know where you are when you post suggestions or ask for assistance. It helps a lot more than you might think especially because this is an international forum with members from all parts of the world. Here's a direct link to yours:

https://commercialdronepilots.com/account/personal-details

Allen

 

[Clinton Carman]

Thanks for the response Allen!

Fire Investigation can be broken into the Public sector (Fire Department) and the Private sector (Guys like Us!). The Public sector deals with the crimes, we deal with everything else. So we work on residential houses/apartments, commercial buildings like restaurants, strip malls, warehouses, we do high-rises, boats, airplanes, vehicles. Basically if there is an insurance claim files on behalf of a fire, we could work on it. Our job typically is to determine where and how the fire started. Other times it's a bit more specific, looking at considerations of fire protections systems, or why people didn't get out of a fire fast enough, etc.

I personally use the Mavic Pro as I can fold it and load it up with my other camera gear in a Pelican case to take it with me wherever I go. I've flown through the state of California, in Oregon, Arizona, and Hawaii. The benefit of the drones can be multi-faceted. I've used them to map very large scenes that I would otherwise have needed to rent an airplane and stick my camera out the window to get everything in a single photo. I've also used them to do inspections of very detailed things like blown transformers that are up on a power pole and out of reach of a standard ladder. I've also used the drones to fly inside a burned building (with the roof gone) and take pictures to stitch into 3D Photo Spheres. Now I primarily do that with a 3D camera, but it's nice to know I can do it with the drone.

Often times, as with most puzzles, you need to be able to step back and take in the whole picture. With a board game or crossword that's easy, when your puzzle is the size of a city block, that becomes significantly more challenging. The drones have really given us the ability to step back and take the whole scene in with a whole new perspective. They're wonderful tools.

Flying the drones in these types of environments can be exceptionally hazardous, things have the potential to move and fall around you and the drone, there many obstacles present that are not in a normal orientation, and sometimes, we need to fly the drone within a few feet of an item to really document it well. It's taken a lot of practice and patience to be able to fly in these kinds of conditions but it is fun as well!

In the future, I'd like to get more familiar with drone mapping programs like Drone Deploy, and maybe even do some work for local people doing Real Estate photos/videos, Construction site inspections, etc.

Hopefully that answered your questions!

Have a good day,
Clinton

 

[Outta Control]

You know I will hold you up to it soon.

 

[AH-1G]

Very interesting CC, what if any company / ies are you familiar with here in Florida uses a drone as you do?

 

[LuvMyTJ]

Hello,
It is a pleasure to welcome you to the CommercialDronePilots forum.
I hope that you will be able to use the forum for the exchange of innovative ideas and as a resource for current developments in the commercial drone field.
Enjoy!

 

[dirkclod]

Welcome to our newest forum .
Take a little time and look around all our subforums to find what suits you and besure to read our Guidelines and ask if you have any questions in a message to any of the staff .
Enjoy all the knowledge members have to offer .

Also be sure and visit this thread CDP Giveaway - Phantom 4 Pro...

 

[Clinton Carman]

Very interesting CC, what if any company / ies are you familiar with here in Florida uses a drone as you do?

AH-1G,
Honestly I'm not sure of any companies using them in Florida. Unfortunately that's pretty darn far from us, and clients will pay us to travel a few states away, but not often then entire length of the United States. However, I'm sure there is a Florida Chapter of the IAAI (International Association of Arson Investigators) and they would have a much better idea who uses drones in fire investigation in Florida.

Cheers!

 

[Clinton Carman]

Thanks all for your warm welcomes!

Any of you know if there is an app for this? I seem to remember there being one for PhantomPilots when I was a member a while back.

 

[BigAl07]

First off @Clinton Carman this should answer your question:
CDP now in Tapatalk

Next I want to thank you for a great and thorough reply. You've given me several ideas of new products/offerings I can add to my line-up.

In the future, I'd like to get more familiar with drone mapping programs like Drone Deploy, and maybe even do some work for local people doing Real Estate photos/videos, Construction site inspections, etc.

I'm on the flip side of the above statement. We have been in residential and commercial Real Estate fora few years now and moved into the Public Safety side of things a couple of years ago. I'm trying to migrate away from RE every chance I get. I find Public Safety very rewarding and I find Industrial work very profitable. Now to figure out how to combine them LOL.

 

[Clinton Carman]

First off @Clinton Carman this should answer your question:
CDP now in Tapatalk

Next I want to thank you for a great and thorough reply. You've given me several ideas of new products/offerings I can add to my line-up.

I'm on the flip side of the above statement. We have been in residential and commercial Real Estate fora few years now and moved into the Public Safety side of things a couple of years ago. I'm trying to migrate away from RE every chance I get. I find Public Safety very rewarding and I find Industrial work very profitable. Now to figure out how to combine them LOL.

For starters, thanks on the tip of Tapatalk. I've never used that, i'll have to check it out.

It's always funny how people can approach this industry from completely different directions and may want to even head in different directions, lol. I also mix in the Real Estate portion with 3D interior scanning and my own photography which ties into my work really well, since I spend most of my time documenting the interior of buildings. The only difference is in Real Estate, the buildings are intact and look nice, Ha!

 

[Chris Spence]

Thanks for the response Allen!

Fire Investigation can be broken into the Public sector (Fire Department) and the Private sector (Guys like Us!). The Public sector deals with the crimes, we deal with everything else. So we work on residential houses/apartments, commercial buildings like restaurants, strip malls, warehouses, we do high-rises, boats, airplanes, vehicles. Basically if there is an insurance claim files on behalf of a fire, we could work on it. Our job typically is to determine where and how the fire started. Other times it's a bit more specific, looking at considerations of fire protections systems, or why people didn't get out of a fire fast enough, etc.

I personally use the Mavic Pro as I can fold it and load it up with my other camera gear in a Pelican case to take it with me wherever I go. I've flown through the state of California, in Oregon, Arizona, and Hawaii. The benefit of the drones can be multi-faceted. I've used them to map very large scenes that I would otherwise have needed to rent an airplane and stick my camera out the window to get everything in a single photo. I've also used them to do inspections of very detailed things like blown transformers that are up on a power pole and out of reach of a standard ladder. I've also used the drones to fly inside a burned building (with the roof gone) and take pictures to stitch into 3D Photo Spheres. Now I primarily do that with a 3D camera, but it's nice to know I can do it with the drone.

Often times, as with most puzzles, you need to be able to step back and take in the whole picture. With a board game or crossword that's easy, when your puzzle is the size of a city block, that becomes significantly more challenging. The drones have really given us the ability to step back and take the whole scene in with a whole new perspective. They're wonderful tools.

Flying the drones in these types of environments can be exceptionally hazardous, things have the potential to move and fall around you and the drone, there many obstacles present that are not in a normal orientation, and sometimes, we need to fly the drone within a few feet of an item to really document it well. It's taken a lot of practice and patience to be able to fly in these kinds of conditions but it is fun as well!

In the future, I'd like to get more familiar with drone mapping programs like Drone Deploy, and maybe even do some work for local people doing Real Estate photos/videos, Construction site inspections, etc.

Hopefully that answered your questions!

Have a good day,
Clinton

Do you have an email address you can post?

 

[Clinton Carman]

Do you have an email address you can post?

[email protected]

 

[AH-1G]

First off @Clinton Carman this should answer your question:
CDP now in Tapatalk

Next I want to thank you for a great and thorough reply. You've given me several ideas of new products/offerings I can add to my line-up.

I'm on the flip side of the above statement. We have been in residential and commercial Real Estate fora few years now and moved into the Public Safety side of things a couple of years ago. I'm trying to migrate away from RE every chance I get. I find Public Safety very rewarding and I find Industrial work very profitable. Now to figure out how to combine them LOL.

OSHA?

 

[BigAl07]

OSHA?

Oh Heavens no... Public Safety as in Law Enforcement, Fire Dept, Search & Rescue.

 

[AH-1G]

Oh Heavens no... Public Safety as in Law Enforcement, Fire Dept, Search & Rescue.

Oooooooooook, LOL