Episode 206: Flying Beyond Fires: How Drones Help First Responders Save Lives with Bobby Ortiz

Episode notes

What fire department challenges can be addressed with drones and robots?

Hello Smart Firefighting Community!

Welcome to another episode of covering real world innovations via interviews with fire service and technology industry experts that empower YOU to develop your very own Smart Firefighting strategy!

Welcome to this 20-episode Texas Robotics Summit Mini Series! This 4 day event (March 4-7, 2024) was hosted at the Reveille Peak Ranch and by our friends at Granite Defense , and showcased the use of robotics (air/water/ground) in public safety via keynote presentations, training scenario stations, roundtable conversations, and more.

In this episode:

Exploring drones in fire services at Texas Robotics Show

Challenges for fire departments with adopting tech solutions

Importance of networking and learning in the fire service community

Hear from Bobby Ortiz - the Battalion Chief for Travis County Emergency Services.

Chief Ortiz emphasizes the importance of embracing technology in the fire service and highlights the applications of drones in emergency situations. He also addresses the challenges fire departments face and encourages tech companies and entrepreneurs to develop user-friendly and collaborative solutions. Lastly, Chief Ortiz emphasizes the need for networking and continuous learning in the fire service.

So click play now to find out what he has to share! And stay tuned for the next Mini Series episode!

Head to www.smartfirefighting.com to discover how SFF accelerates innovation for emergency responders, to find out when our next event is, or review our curated resources!

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Chapters

1. 0:00 Kevin's intro to the Texas Robotics Summit mini-series
2. 0:45 Battalion Chief Bobby Ortiz joins
3. 1:14 Reveille Peak Ranch and what's happening at the summit
4. 1:44 Getting started with drones and the Texas unmanned working group
5. 3:23 Defining a robot or drone for public safety
6. 4:54 Thermal imaging, loudspeakers and other payloads
7. 5:39 Live demos, training scenarios and networking
8. 7:46 Local hazards and where drones help the district
9. 10:08 Message to tech companies and legislators on usable, interoperable platforms
10. 13:53 Message to first responders on embracing change
11. 15:30 What's ahead in 2024 with FRI, TSI and Ascent
12. 17:46 How entrepreneurs should partner with fire departments
13. 19:37 Parting thoughts on sending your people out to learn
14. 20:32 Closing
15. 20:58 Outro

Questions answered in this episode

How is Pflugerville Fire using drones today?

Bobby Ortiz says the department is in the infancy stages. Thermography is the main use so far. Thermal helps spot hot areas under tree canopy in wildland fires, see neighbors surrounding potential wildland interface, and tell at what stage a chemical has developed into something potentially more dangerous.

Hear it at 4:54

What makes a drone or robot useful to public safety?

It lets you send a machine on a mission instead of putting a person into danger, such as a hazmat scene, a water search, or reconnaissance of where a wildland fire is headed, without the cost of crewed aircraft.

Hear it at 3:51

What is Bobby Ortiz's advice to firefighters who resist new technology?

Change and technology are inevitable. Bobby compares drones to thermal cameras 20 odd years ago when people said don't use that, you're not really doing a good search if you're using a thermal camera. Know how to do a search without thermal, but if there's technology that's there that's going to help you solve the problem quicker, use it.

Hear it at 14:21

What did he ask of drone developers and legislators?

Not to get so caught up into where the product is made. At the end of the day public safety platforms are monitored, footage is captured in a way that can be used not only for the scene at the time but also after action reviews, so professional users are the safest people to be out there using them.

Hear it at 10:38

Transcript

Machine transcript of the published audio. Names may be misspelled and some sections are missing.

Ep 206 transcript

Flying Beyond Fires: How Drones Help First Responders Save Lives with Bobby Ortiz

Speakers: Kevin Sofen, Bobby Ortiz

Source: Whisper medium.en machine transcription of the published Podbean audio (no original transcript found in Drive), lightly cleaned. Speakers were separated by voice clustering and then checked and assigned by hand at every speaker change. Gaps where the model returned no usable text are marked [inaudible m:ss].

[0:00] Kevin Sofen: Welcome to a 20-episode mini-series at the Texas Robotics Summit, hosted by our friends at Granite Defense. We dive into the evolving world of drones and robotics in public safety aviation. Through 20 fantastic conversations with leaders across public safety, from the fire service, law enforcement, EMS operations, wildlife management, and more, we explore the challenges, and the critical role of technology in enhancing emergency services operations. A special thanks to the sponsor of the Smart Firefighting Podcast, W.S. Darley & Company, for making this podcast possible. Enjoy the show. Sitting here live in the first of our mini series at the Texas Robotics Show, alongside Battalion Chief Bobby Ortiz. Bobby, how you doing?

[0:53] Bobby Ortiz: Good brother, how are you?

[0:54] Kevin Sofen: Dude, I'm doing well. It's good to be in Texas.

[0:57] Bobby Ortiz: Good, glad to have you here.

[0:58] Kevin Sofen: and this is like your home turf.

[1:00] Bobby Ortiz: It is, usually we see you up in Dallas, but you're back in Central Texas now.

[1:04] Kevin Sofen: Yeah, I mean, I can't say I've ever been here, done anything like this, but for those that aren't here, paint a picture, like what's happening here at the Texas Robotics Show?

[1:14] Bobby Ortiz: So this is my first time to come out here to the Reveille Peak Ranch for this ranch is, it's used for a multitude of things, from Spartan races to dirt bike races, law enforcement has the opportunity, Texas DPS uses this place a lot. 1400 acre ranch with all sorts of different types of terrain and vehicles, buses, everything for you to get your drone on and take a look and see what you can do with it and get your confidence built up for real-time situational awareness.

[1:44] Kevin Sofen: So what brought you here? Are you using drones, robots? Tell me about your experience and your interest with drones.

[1:51] Bobby Ortiz: So we are kind of in the infancy stages of using the drones. I got involved with the technology side of the fire service a few years ago with the first TSI in Irving. And that's where I met you the first time. And I've been involved ever since. Also the chair of the Texas Fire Chiefs Association, actually the IAFC's side of it better for the unmanned part. There's about six of us that are in our group for the portion of that. And I'm actually sharing that with a couple of other guys who know way more about this than I do, Just more of the organizer, I guess, to get that put out there. As far as the drone side, there's so many different applications that you can use drones and emergency services. With emergency services and drones, look for missing people, structure fires, wild land fires, without having to use major air assets like what we use here in Central Texas Star Flight. Houston uses different stuff and Dallas, but the Austin Fire Department has helped me out a lot getting started with a lot of their technology, their wisdom. Jason Burnside has been an amazing asset to me with all that stuff.

[2:59] Kevin Sofen: I'm also a believer in surrounding yourself with people smarter than yourself.

[3:03] Bobby Ortiz: A hundred percent. I couldn't be successful without asking people questions.

[3:06] Kevin Sofen: Yeah.

[3:07] Bobby Ortiz: So there's a lot to know when it comes to this space. When you think of the fire service, you don't necessarily think of drones, you don't think of robotics, but this is 2024 and things are changing, so why not use the technology that you have available to help you be more successful and help keep people safe.

[3:23] Kevin Sofen: Yeah, well said. And I think most people's first experience with drones were those drones that people saw in the airport tech stores. And I think that might have been parrots, kind of the first commercial-grade drones. But they've come quite a long way. And I think in the context of a robot or a drone and sort of how it relates to firefighters, law enforcement, public safety, how would you define a robot or a drone with the lens of public safety?

[3:51] Bobby Ortiz: So robot, I guess more specifically, because it's a broader net, I guess. So something that you don't have to put a person into a situation. You can send a robot with a mission and you're not having to put somebody in there specifically into an idealized situation where they can be harmed by either a chemical from hazmat underwater, looking for a lost person in a river or a lake ravine, and then into airspace. that's very costly when you're trying to get some sort of reconnaissance or situational awareness of where a wild land fire is headed. A missing person, you can cover a larger scale in a lot shorter amount of time with fewer resources.

[4:32] Kevin Sofen: And then it's not just the drone itself, it's not this flying piece of plastic or metal or whatever we're making out of these days. It's a lot of these, what the drone is carrying in some of the widgets, some of the accessories, some of the software, but in the context of your role and kind of how you're looking at drones, how are you using some of these other accessories and software to help do your job better?

[4:54] Bobby Ortiz: So thermography is the main point that we use with us so far. We haven't delved into the Boston Dynamics spot yet, where you can have all sorts of monitoring equipment for hazmat, we haven't done that yet. But with thermal alone, you can tell at what stage a chemical has developed into something that's potentially more dangerous. wildland fires, things that are under a canopy of trees. You can see areas that still need attention. More specifically, if you're in a WUI situation, you can see neighbors that are surrounding the potential wildland interface at that point. And with other technologies attached to the drones, like loudspeakers, you can evacuate neighborhoods. You can alert people pretty quickly.

[5:39] Kevin Sofen: And we're here in Texas at the Texas Robotic Show. That's right, and that's fellow Preston Culver and Mike Massarino, two of the fellow homies who have helped really commandeer this podcast and this event. How, I mean, there's all these live demos that we're gonna ultimately take with those words that you said and put them into practice. What are maybe some of these demos that you expect to see over the next couple days and how, again, that sort of training and practicing about how we can continue to take these pieces of flying plastic and hopefully learn how to apply it to better first responder outcomes.

[6:13] Bobby Ortiz: So they have many different applications out here from inside inspections of a tower. They have a 70 foot tower over here. You can fly inside and outside of that to help inspect that. We have buses for the ability to fly like a Nevada, something that can fly indoors, has protection on the propellers, and gives you really good intel and good opportunity to train. Not everybody has the money to be able to build these training scenarios for opportunities to fly inside and outside, nor the training but to develop those things or the connections yet. So having the networking ability here and saying, hey, you know, I'm here in Central Texas too. Would you mind giving us an opportunity to come to where you are and fly, you know, the training things that you've already built? So that's huge so far. Lots of networking here. So I'm excited. I can't wait to see how people work.

[7:10] Kevin Sofen: I mean, even in the background, there's ATVs and trucks driving by, you got different drones of, you know, ones that fit in your palm to ones that look like a human could go inside of it. I don't know if I'm just quite ready to be the volunteer for that one yet.

[7:25] Bobby Ortiz: I'm pretty excited about that, man.

[7:27] Kevin Sofen: Are you going to volunteer as tribute?

[7:28] Bobby Ortiz: I would love to take that day for a spin.

[7:30] Kevin Sofen: There goes Bobby, going up, never comes back.

[7:32] Bobby Ortiz: Like I said, man, I'm 30 minutes from here. By the way, the crow flies, I could probably make it there.

[7:36] Kevin Sofen: It's a 20-minute battery. Yeah, all right, you know, it goes far. and then you just take a little...

[7:40] Bobby Ortiz: It's landing in the cul-de-sac.

[7:41] Kevin Sofen: Yeah, and then things walk the rest. Call your kids and pick you up.

[7:45] Bobby Ortiz: That's right.

[7:45] Kevin Sofen: Yeah, man, that's cool. Well, so within Pflugerville, what are some of the challenges that you face in terms of, you know, maybe just to kind of explain a challenge and then sort of how are you looking at how a drone, aerial land or water robot is going to be used to help fire departments, again, protect first responders from being in unnecessary risk or better support a rescue from someone in the community?

[8:10] Bobby Ortiz: Sure, I mean, if you look at anything that a firefighter, a fire department is called to do, people call 911 for everything, whether it be a missing person, whether it be a collision on the interstate. We have three major thoroughfares that run through the area that we protect, two toll roads and interstate I-35. So you have all sorts of hazardous materials that go up and down the interstate on a regular basis. We have wildland urban interface issues. We have structures to protect. We have water with a small lake, lots of creeks that run through the area. A lot of undeveloped property that's actually a little bit more difficult to traverse either on foot, UTV, a lot of places fire trucks definitely cannot get to. And the ability to know an area and to fly that area, plan out a flight and be able to look for the things that you're looking for, whether it be a missing person, use the thermal on a collision with an 18-wheeler that is carrying some sort of hazardous material, whether it's going to do some sort of chemical change, that's a big deal, and it's super helpful. Fortunately, with the leadership with my organization, if it's going to do something to help the community, they're all about it. Let's do it. Let's do it fiscally responsibly for the citizens and the money they provide for us, but at the end of the day, the service is for them. So if we can help move ourselves into the 2024, 2025 and further, we can't be behind the eight ball. We need to be up to speed with everybody else and the technology is only going to help. So let's be familiar with the technology. Let's use what's available out there. But at the end of the day, be fiscally responsible and make sure that if we're going to get into something that we're going to get into it, we're going to do it to the best of our abilities. And we're going to be at the forefront. We're going to help lead the charge and be right there with not only the technology, but the people that are developing it.

[10:08] Kevin Sofen: Great context. And two questions that came to mind when you were talking were kind of what would be your message to kind of two stakeholders here. When we're talking about technology as a whole and an ecosystem, what would be your message to tech companies, entrepreneurs in terms of how they're thinking about developing technology to this, to public safety? And then on the flip side, what would be your message to other first responders, other public safety members that are maybe on the fence thinking about tech or kind of not sure where to start? So maybe start with kind of the tech side.

[10:38] Bobby Ortiz: So, one of the biggest things that I would think of if we're talking to the developers and I venture to say even the legislators, let's not get so caught up into where the product is made. At the end of the day, there are millions of drone users that are not on professional platforms like we are, where the footage is monitored, it's captured in a way that we can use not only for the scene at the time, but also after action reviews. So I don't want to get to the point where we have to use aircraft that only we say we can use. There's a lot of people that are using this stuff that have zero control over where they're viewing, what they're viewing, and unfortunately there's no way for the FAA to monitor the recreational flyer. So if the legislators are worried about recreational flyers, or I'm sorry, public safety flyers and the things that we see as pilots, we're doing certain missions at certain times. Everything is sent to repositories for all of our information. I think that we're the safest people to be out there using them. And unfortunately, a lot of the third party developers don't allow certain platforms to have operation over their, or oversight over their controllers, which causes issues for us, we work in conjunction with many different agencies and to have one area where we can all throw up a flight code, say, Hey, we're all flying under this mission code so that we can all look at each other's footage. We can get a grander scheme of, we have eight aircraft in the air at one time. We're all flying together rather than just one aircraft because the interface doesn't allow more than one aircraft to be viewed, or you have to have a certain piece of software to fly this certain aircraft that hinders our objectives and our missions so I don't like that so if you are a if you're a developer if you make drones or you make the software make it usable so that everybody can use it together collectively and I don't think that we need to be worried about the things that we're looking at to be sent overseas I don't think that's that's a big problem a lot of times like a wilder interface We're often looking at a field where there is no Nothing to worry about, you know, we're looking to see where the fire is headed We're looking at you know, a structure fire a building that's already burning. We have the drone up in the air. It's circling It's giving us good Intel. It's letting us know. Hey, these are the hot spots that these are areas concern These are possible structural collapse areas. That's not information that's gonna give anybody in another country any information that could be used against us? So I think that's that's an issue

[13:11] Kevin Sofen: I mean, yeah, that's a significant problem and obviously trending at the show in terms of what you can't use and can use and granted I think you and I both have iPhones in front of our hands and you know, we don't need to go too far down this rabbit hole But I would agree that we need to do whatever is possible from a legislative perspective just to continue to allow first responders to have the technology they need at affordable price to Be able to get Intel to make better decisions and when we're creating when it gets into a little bit of political war again stuff that's maybe not things we normally cover in this podcast, it's a bit frustrating because you want these people to do your job with the best ability, and when you have some silly rules that prevent you from doing that's cause for frustration, and wanting to do something about it in some context.

[13:53] Bobby Ortiz: Absolutely.

[13:53] Kevin Sofen: Yeah, so then on the flip side of the question was your message to other first responders, those that maybe have looked at drones, thought about drones, or technology in general, what would be your message to those that are, again, going against that terrible phrase of, you know, a hundred years of tradition unimpeded by progress, which, you know, sorry for saying it, but nonetheless, like, what would you say to some of the kind of cultural embedded mindset of, hey, not wanting to embrace something new?

[14:21] Bobby Ortiz: So change is inevitable. It's going to happen. Technology is inevitable. If you want to keep up with the times, you need to embrace it is here. It's not going away. Technology is ever-changing. It kind of reminds me of when I first started in the fire service, 20-odd years ago, with thermal cameras, people were like, oh, don't use that. You're not really doing a good search if you're using a thermal camera, or what happens if your thermal camera fails and now you don't know how to do it. Sure, I get it. Know how to do a search without thermal, but if there's technology that's there that's going to help you solve the problem quicker, use the technology that's going to help you solve the problem quicker. I think one of the biggest things that many organizations don't have enough of, and that's resources, especially if you run in a district that is busy. You can't trap several units to one call. That can be solved using fewer resources and technology. That's not being fiscally responsible with the taxpayer dollars. So at the end of the day, we need to be able to serve the citizens that pay us to do the missions that they want us to take care of. And I think any technology that's out there that helps us better serve those that we serve needs to be utilized.

[15:30] Kevin Sofen: Yeah, well said. And so it's March, 2024. What else is in store for you this year? What do you, anything you're excited about? any other events you're attending this year?

[15:40] Bobby Ortiz: So there's a lot of, a lot of things in the forefront for us, FRI is coming up. that's something that we'll be attending. Of course, TSI again, at the end of the year, that's probably been the most profound conference that I've, that I've been to, if you're, if you're into the technology side, there are always vendors there who bring new things to the forefront, things that you haven't even thought of that wasn't maybe even a thought the year previous we go out there and we get a chance to talk to vendors and talk to people that are developing these things like Ascent. Golly, what a cool thing they're working towards. I can't wait to see where that goes with them. Being able to locate again one of our own in any vertices that's incredible. That's one of the things you know from a RIT perspective we have a down firefighter. Where exactly is that down firefighter? If your Firefighter is wearing some of their technology. It's already built out, you know, some sort of photographic reference for you. It alerts, it gives you visual keys. I mean, pretty dang cool.

[16:42] Kevin Sofen: And similar to like what you said with the FLIR camera and yeah, with the Ascent technology, it's in a lot of ways, and the simplest way to describe it is, those technologies, they're selling time. FLIR, if you can use it to more quickly understand different hotspots or more quickly understand fire science dynamics to make a quicker decision, saving you time. If a firefighter's wearing the Ascent technology going in, and then you as an incident commander can more quickly know where they are, and if there's a Mayday, and you can have a faster RIT, you're still on time. Would you agree with that, or anything else you'd elaborate on that?

[17:14] Bobby Ortiz: No, you know, generally speaking, if you have a Mayday situation, it's not a RIT team that's gonna save that downed firefighter, it's the firefighters that are closest to that downed firefighter. So if you're able to know that, hey, I've got firefighters on the alpha bravo corner of this building, I have a downed firefighter on the Charlie side of the building. I can send those people with exact location and their, you know, particular situation that they're dealing with immediately. But being able to, on a multi-level building, being able to tell where they are, that's game changing.

[17:46] Kevin Sofen: Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's important to just continue to be open to embracing these new technologies, things that didn't exist. And I think infrared in general is a good example in that 15 years ago is like that statement you said earlier of like, oh, you don't need it, or it's not going to prevent you from doing it better. But I think what I like about what I've seen from Ascent, as well as some other companies, as well, is trying to integrate technology into public safety operations without being overly disruptive. Granted, there was a phrase earlier said about change, but you can't just think you have the best piece of technology in the world and think that fire service is going to stop what they're doing and use that in full stop. And so I think it's important, I'd love for you to ramp up on this a little bit of like how entrepreneurs should think about integrating into public safety operations and then sort of working with and listening to fire service members as opposed to saying, hey, I know what you need and this is why you should take it, you know, where I think it's probably better obviously to take a little bit more of a listening and learning approach.

[18:47] Bobby Ortiz: Yeah, I think that listening to and getting partnerships with fire departments, going out there and just saying, hey, would you mind letting us try out this piece of equipment? I know you have this training facility. Can we go out there and utilize your firefighters doing real situations, real challenges and see how exactly it works? Does it work well? Does our thought process of how this thing should have worked actually work the way that we think it does, or what kind of tweaks do we need to make? Partnerships are big. It's difficult sometimes for organizations that are on a budget to say, hey, this is May. It wasn't budgeted for the previous June to go out there and drop money, but for them to come out to us and to say, hey, we want to make the fire service better, would you mind partnering with us to help us? That's huge.

[19:34] Kevin Sofen: That's a recipe for success.

[19:35] Bobby Ortiz: Absolutely.

[19:36] Kevin Sofen: Yeah. So, kind of parting thoughts here, any kind of mic drop of sorts, you know, maybe I'm gonna ask you to drop this, these new mics I just got, but any kind of like final thoughts, questions, challenge, quotes, or something that you could leave us with here today?

[19:49] Bobby Ortiz: If you're a fire service leader, you need to be sending your personnel out there to gain knowledge, to see what else is out there. I don't care if you're a two-station fired-up. or if you're a hundred station department. The people that work for you can be smart, but they don't have all the answers. Networking and learning from the people that are out on the forefront can help your organization more than anything. Get out there, see what else is out there. See how technology can better serve you as a leader, but also serve your people and those that we serve. Cause it's all out there. It's getting better every single day. And I can't thank the people enough that put these things together to allow us to come out here and learn from the masters.

[20:32] Kevin Sofen: Right on, Bobby. Well, from this Texas Robotics Summit, as well as a lot of the work that we've done together with the IAFC and TSI 2023 and TSI 2024, which I'm really excited to dive in that shortly in the work you do with the tech council. Just appreciate you, man. I appreciate you being here and look forward to just continue to collaborate on some exciting initiatives to help continue to support public safety at large.

[20:55] Bobby Ortiz: Great, man. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me.

[20:57] Kevin Sofen: Yeah, take care. Thanks for tuning in to this miniseries created at the Texas Robotics Summit, hosted by Granite Defense. Make sure to put this amazing event on your calendar for 2025. With this podcast episode, what do you like? What do you think? Drop us a comment on social media and let us know your favorite quote. Thanks for all that you do. Have a great day ahead.