More than 100 drones on standby for wildfire season across Greece

More than 100 drones distributed crossed each regions of Greece volition beryllium disposable to the Fire Service and Civil Protection during this year’s wildfire season, arsenic portion of the country’s wood surveillance mechanism.

According to Civil Protection sources, the drones volition play a decisive relation successful monitoring, the accelerated reporting of incidents, and the verification of information. The unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) volition run astir the clock, providing continuous unrecorded sum of the areas they monitor, and person already been deployed crossed each 13 administrative regions of the country.

Strategic locations person reportedly been selected to show forests, suburban areas, high-risk zones, regions with a past of fires, and locations with hard access. The drones are equipped with thermal cameras, high-zoom optical cameras, laser range-finder systems, GPS, and telemetry systems.

Recently, Climate Crisis and Civil Protection Minister Evangelos Tournas stressed during the 5th Forum of the Hymettus Protection and Development Association that “we cannot face earthy disasters with tools and mindsets of the past,” emphasizing the request for continuous adaptation of readying and operational readiness to the realities created by the clime crisis.

Tournas besides reiterated that the operational doctrine is based connected “surveillance, aboriginal warning, contiguous mobilization of forces, and accelerated involution to incorporate fires during the archetypal captious minutes,” adding that “the cardinal to effectual effect is, first, reducing occurrence outbreaks arsenic overmuch arsenic possible, and second, intervening early.”

Drone organisation by region

The drone allocation crossed Greece’s regions is arsenic follows:

• Attica: 27 drones
• Central Greece: 7
• Thessaly: 5
• Epirus: 5
• Western Macedonia: 3
• Central Macedonia: 15
• Eastern Macedonia & Thrace: 7
• North Aegean: 4
• South Aegean: 3
• Crete: 4
• Peloponnese: 8
• Western Greece: 7
• Ionian Islands: 5

Mobile drone surveillance units

In addition, this twelvemonth the Fire Service and Civil Protection volition besides run 3 specially configured mobile drone surveillance units designed to supply contiguous operational enactment successful areas wherever fires interruption retired oregon wherever determination is heightened risk.

These units volition beryllium based successful Attica, Thessaloniki, and Crete, but tin besides beryllium deployed elsewhere depending connected operational needs. According to officials, they volition see multi-backup connection systems to guarantee uninterrupted transmission of ocular information to cognition centers, multi-screen power consoles for implicit oversight, and precocious processing units providing crews with entree to captious real-time information.

These mobile centers volition beryllium capable to relocate instantly wherever needed, with drones conducting continuous surveillance flights and transmitting unrecorded video and information successful existent time.

How the drones operate

The drones show forests and different high-risk areas some time and night. During nighttime operations, they usage thermal imaging cameras, allowing operators to observe vigor signatures adjacent successful low-visibility conditions.

According to Civil Protection sources, this enables the aboriginal detection of vigor sources, suspicious smoke, oregon occurrence enactment adjacent successful inaccessible areas. Live footage is transmitted successful existent clip to Regional Operations Centers and to the National Coordination Center for Operations and Crisis Management, portion frontline operational teams tin besides person the aforesaid provender connected tablets and smartphones.

When a occurrence breaks out, drones assistance place the root rapidly — adjacent during the earliest moments of ignition. Officials accidental they are besides important successful directing firefighting forces, since they supply a continuous unrecorded overview of the occurrence front.

Authorities accent that this capableness is highly important due to the fact that it allows for contiguous operational consciousness and faster real-time decision-making. Field commanders person the aforesaid unrecorded operational representation connected mobile devices, giving them a broader knowing of the occurrence alternatively than conscionable the country instantly astir them. This allows them to rapidly accommodate deployment plans according to changing conditions.

Artificial quality and “panic button” alerts

The drones are built for precocious endurance and harvester thermal and optical sensors with precocious artificial quality algorithms. According to Civil Protection sources, this creates “an uninterrupted surveillance mechanism” susceptible of visually confirming incidents from agelong distances, identifying terrain details specified arsenic vegetation benignant and roadworthy access, detecting thermal anomalies earlier they are disposable to the bare eye, and monitoring occurrence improvement successful low-visibility, smoke-heavy environments.

Using AI software, the strategy tin besides cipher the nonstop geographic coordinates of an incidental successful existent time.

Drone operators continuously scan their assigned areas. If they observe vigor oregon smoke, they usage thermal and optical zoom to absorption connected the constituent of involvement and instantly alert the Fire Service with the precise geographic coordinates of the incident.

Additionally, the strategy incorporates a rapid-alert “Panic Button” feature. Once a drone relation detects a occurrence source, activating the fastener automatically reorganizes the video partition wrong the operations center, enlarging the unrecorded drone provender successful a pop-up model for contiguous attention.

At the aforesaid time, the Fire Service tin usage the unrecorded aerial footage to rapidly measure the severity of an incidental adjacent earlier firefighting units arrive, helping prioritize the deployment of some crushed and aerial resources.

Finally, officials enactment that the usage of drones successful wildfire effect has expanded importantly successful caller years. In 2024, Greece utilized 40 drones successful its archetypal twelvemonth of large-scale operational deployment, portion successful 2025 the fig accrued to 80.