In 2010, the U.S. Department of the Interior began regularly using drones to help fight wildfires. Seven years later, Oregon topped the nation in the use of drones for fire wildfire and natural resource missions.
When the DOI’s drone program first started, they used decommissioned military hand-me-downs used on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq. The noisy, cumbersome unmanned aerial systems took reams of paperwork for them to even qualify for flight, but they proved their merit. The government saw how effective these new tools can be. The small number of pilots steadily grew as the department trained new people and got their hands on more advanced technology. Soon, pilots were able to spend minutes doing tasks that otherwise would have taken hours.