How a drone helped firefighters battle a blaze in New York City
The New York Fire Department has been messing around with a new drone for months. On Monday, it finally put the gadget into action.
After a four-alarm fire broke out at a six-story building in the Bronx, the $85,000 drone was deployed high above the scene. Connected to the ground by a small cable, it relayed live images back to the ground.
"The roof started to fail and we had a lot of great radio reports but that’s only verbal, so with the drone we had good visual pictures and it really helped us make decisions to put this fire out and keep our members safe," said FDNY Deputy Assistant Chief Dan Donoghue on Facebook.
Here's some of the footage taken by the drone at the scene Monday night:
FDNY officials said they've been using the drone for about eight months -- but just for training. The Bronx fire was its public debut. The device has an infrared and high-def camera, perfect for finding dangerously hot areas from above.
Sasha is a news writer at Mashable's San Francisco office. She's an SF native who went to UC Davis and later received her master's from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She's been reporting out of her hometown over the years at Bay City News (news wire), SFGate (the San Francisco Chronicle website), and even made it out of California to write for the Chicago Tribune. She's been described as a bookworm and a gym rat.
