Episode Transcript
[00:00:11] Speaker A: Hello, and welcome to the 29th episode of Wildfire Matters, the podcast that covers all aspects of wildland fire management for the Bureau of Land Management, or BLM. We talk with the people who help manage and protect our public lands, many who dedicate their lives to the profession. And I just want to point out, when we talk about BLM Fire, we are also including the aviation program. So it's BLM fire and aviation, but just to make it easy for people, it's BLM fire, all encompassing. And today we are happy to have, or I am happy to have. Piper is actually on a fire assignment, so I'm going solo today with Matt Dutton from the National Aviation, UA's program manager for the BLM, the remote pilots and remote systems program manager. That's kind of a mouthful. Mouthful, yeah.
[00:01:02] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:01:03] Speaker A: So welcome.
[00:01:04] Speaker B: Thank you, Matt. Very happy to be here.
[00:01:06] Speaker A: Yeah. So first off, just tell us a little bit about yourself, how you got started and how you ended up as the UA's program manager. And I guess I should say UA's stands for unmanned or uncrewed aircraft systems, depending on what agency you work for, right?
[00:01:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:01:25] Speaker A: So we'll probably talk about that a little bit later, too.
[00:01:29] Speaker B: Yeah, I can say that never in my wildest imagination did I think I would work in the BLM National Aviation office or in the UA's field. Started probably similar to most folks, operationally oriented. Started in 1994 over in La Grande, not too far from here, and I, and just kind of followed the pretty standard operational path. You know, it's been mid nineties as a hotshot with the Forest Service, and then transitioned to the park service, and spent the majority of my career with the park service, kind of on that fire use, backcountry, wildland fire management type world, which I loved and thrived in and miss. And then when I moved to Boise in 2014, just, you know, kind of some, one thing after another fell into place. I started working in the training center with Kelly woods, and, and that was about the time that the BLM stood up their UA's program, and they were looking for some training coordination, some training support. And Gildust and my predecessor came over and had a conversation with Kelly, and fortunately for me, my name was forwarded and I helped them out. And so from 20 16, 17, 18, 19 20, I was the UA's training specialist for the program, for the BLM. And then that morphed and evolved into me landing into this job when Mister Gil Dustin retired and.
[00:02:48] Speaker A: Yeah, he left a couple years ago. Yeah. And the program's been around about. Since about 2015, correct?
[00:02:54] Speaker B: Well, the program, ironically, has been around since 2010. Oh, the earliest trainings and cardings and operations go back to 2010. I kind of just refer to it as this kind of contemporary era. Our modern era ramp up started in 2015.
[00:03:09] Speaker A: We really started taking it seriously and looking at how it can benefit higher in all of our resource programs.
[00:03:15] Speaker B: Yeah. And to put a number to it, I mean, in 2015, 1617, we trained like 187 bureau remote pilots and had about that many aircraft in the bureau doing various work across all the program areas.
[00:03:26] Speaker A: Wow. So explain the remote pilots and remote systems program. Like, what is it?
[00:03:33] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, I've been around long enough to try not to get caught up in Alphabet soup, and I could see some of the writing on the wall with the politics that were going on at the time with the secretary order and executive orders. And, you know, is it unmanned? Is it uncrewed? You know, the forest service still leaves unmanned. The DOI switched to uncrewed. Colleges and academia seem to have landed on unoccupied.
And I'm just like, man, I feel like we might play the this game for the rest of my career, and I would rather put the focus on what it is, and that's remote pilots and remote systems aircraft. And I just wanted to call that out. It gets us away from the Alphabet soup and whatever is going to happen there. But it puts the emphasis on what it is that we do, which is we train people to become remote pilots and go out and do good work with remote systems aircraft, and just wanted to call it what it is.
[00:04:33] Speaker A: So what type of training is required to become a remote systems remote pilot?
[00:04:38] Speaker B: Yeah. So a remote pilot in the BLM is pretty robust. You know, we put a lot of, well, first of all, we have a lot of lessons and a lot of time doing this. We're close to ten years of working through this program. And every day and every week and every month and every year, we learn so much and that ask us to evolve and adapt our training curriculum and how we deliver. And we really put a lot of energy in the performance and experiential learning aspects of our training. So our, the bureau training is pretty robust. And so all Department of Interior remote pilots are required to have the FAA part 107 certificate. That's something that you could get through the FAA, and that's kind of the entry card into any DOI UA's training. And so the DOI minimum per the Office of Aviation Services OAS is the basic a 450, what we call basic remote pilot. And that's a one week course. And that's a great class. It has all of the important knowledge topics, you know, airspace, airspace management policy, safety, risk management. All those things are folded into that class, but that's a lot to fold into one week. And so we've been working with a college over the last three years to provide kind of an online, self paced, college accredited course where our pilot candidates can, can take that over a term. Eight weeks. Again, self paced online, so that we can provide an opportunity to take a deeper dive in those really, really important knowledge topics.
And because we're able to do that, and I'm grateful and thankful that we have a bureau and an organization and an aviation culture in the bureau and the National Aviation office that allows us to do that, we get to spend that much more time in person. So at the conclusion of that eight week online, we come together for two weeks. And again, because we've carved out so much time for folks to focus on the knowledge, we can really focus on the performance. And so for the BLM, at the conclusion of that online piece, we come together for two weeks of in person training. The first week is the a 450. So we check the department box and we just learn basic flight maneuvering and inputs and. And then the second week is a little bit more application based, basic mapping, basic cinematography, you know, basic applications so that, you know, the overall goal is when we send our remote pilots home, they're set up for success.
[00:07:12] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a lot.
[00:07:14] Speaker B: Yeah, and that's just, that's just foundational. Right. So if we get into the wildland fire side of things, then we have another week of class called S 373 incident operations with UA's. And that's how we, that's really focused on communication, coordination, deconfliction in an airspace where fixed wing and rotorcraft are operating. And so how do we integrate into that airspace into an FTR TFR? FTA safely is so that everybody in that airspace can do the job, which, of course, the goal is to support the folks on the ground doing the work. So that's another week. Right. And then there's the aerial ignition component, which is a three week academy, one week in class, you know, learning the payload, and then two week practicum traveling around the southwest or southeast and the west, dropping balls, just, you know, so we can really put a lot of energy and speed to competency and get folks out doing good work.
[00:08:11] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a lot of. Well, you would need a lot of training for that, too.
[00:08:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:08:15] Speaker A: Yeah, I was thinking, so what university are you working with then?
[00:08:19] Speaker B: We're actually working with the community college out of the Dalles, Oregon, Columbia Gorge Community College. And we're about three years into that relationship and just really trying to, you know, build something that will serve our purposes and needs, but also give them something that, you know, that they can use in their kind of, in their region, you know, city, county, state, private landowners that might want to use UA's to do whatever they want to do. Right. That there's this kind of standardized access to some standardized training and education that really doesn't exist today. You know, the FAA is the part 107, and it's just a knowledge test with no performance practicum.
[00:09:02] Speaker A: Right, right. So, like, for specifically what we use UA's for.
[00:09:07] Speaker B: Right, yeah. So that's the college that we're partnered with. And we're, again, you know, three years into this relationship, and now we're at that point where we're collaborating with colleges and universities, so we're collaborating with clems and collaborate with Oklahoma State University. And there are others, and his, that's his gentleman we work with over there is the director of their UA's program and the professor, and of course, that's his network. The academic network is his network. So kind of lean on hand to bring in the right folks and the right partners, but, yeah, just trying to grow this. And at the end of the day, this UA's endeavor is absolutely pioneering. So it's lacking a lot of policy rules and regulations. It's lacking curriculum standards and training standards. And I think that's a credit. I think the department and OAS and the BLM, and there are folks in this wildland fire interagency community should be proud of, is where there is an absence of those things. We've really kind of led the way in the last seven years on developing what we've developed, at least on the incident front.
[00:10:06] Speaker A: And is there, like, required firefighting training? I mean, should you have fire experience before getting training in UA's?
[00:10:16] Speaker B: Well, I think because of what I just said, it's pioneering. So that's a philosophical question, right? Like, do you have to have x, y, z, five years of fire, certain amount of calls to do this? And so I can't give you a clear answer. I land on the philosophical side of, you know, right now, this is an absolutely, for the BLM, it's an aviation endeavor. So I put all of our emphasis on being a pilot operating aircraft in the national airspace. And so my philosophical answer to that question is no, I just need you to have your basic, you know, 100, 3190, whatever PAc test. We need you to have to be.
[00:10:55] Speaker A: Able to be red carded.
[00:10:56] Speaker B: To be red carded, right. And then we're going to train you to be a pilot. We're going to train you to do good things on the fireline and provide that training experience to make you functional, safe, efficient, all those things.
[00:11:08] Speaker A: So is this training offered every year or how often come about?
[00:11:13] Speaker B: Well, the, for the BLM, we've been in the department by and large. We've been shut down for, you know, five, five years because of various policies. And although those policies got rescinded in some way or another, in one way or another, in 2022, we were in such a state and didn't have access to compliant aircraft per policy that we've remained stale and stagnant as a program. This is like year five since the shutdown 2020. So our training offerings have been limited to non existent for the bureau at large. But on the wildland fire side, because of the exemptions or exceptions we were given during that shutdown, that training community and delivery schedule has remained pretty robust. The Forest Service programs grew during that time period. And so I think, you know, on average, I'm just, I've got a mental schedule in my head here where I think the interagency community delivers five or six iterations of that a every year by and large, for forest service, park service, bia, fish and wildlife service, and ourselves and state partners, when and where.
[00:12:25] Speaker A: We can get them in, and then. So once you become a pilot and all that, do you do like a refresher training then after that, or refresher every year or how does that.
[00:12:36] Speaker B: Yeah. The four qualifications that exist in the 310, one are UASP, which is the pilot. There's a UA's manager, which we use to kind of manage the large Kalwa needed type one, type two. UA's the big think, big military looking drones. We have a UA's data specialist, which kind of takes the data that we collect and processes it into usable products and material, and then a UASL, which is a leader, which is kind of undefined at the moment in some ways, but it effectively is a UA's pilot with a single resource boss qualification. So we can provide that fireline supervision to folks that may not have fire experience qualifications, but have the ability to be a pilot. So those are 4310 one qualifications, and they have refresher requirements. And so there are via, you know, RT 373 annual requirements to stay proficient and current on the Wildland fireside. But there's also OAS and DOI, pilot proficiency and currency requirements to maintain your DoI card. So those are, we live in this world where we straddle a fence, where we have these kind of aviation cards and qualifications and requirements and also the fire line. And that's a lot. Yeah, a lot to manage and a lot to maintain.
[00:13:54] Speaker A: And how many remote pilots do we.
[00:13:56] Speaker B: Have currently the BLM? At our peak, we were at 187. But again, over the last five years, we've regressed a little bit. I think we're sitting around 70. And I think this time next year we'll likely be around 130 as we start to reintegrate our pilots into new aircraft. And then the outlook is, you know, it's sizable. The bureau wants to do this and use this, and it's just a matter of, you know, finding the time to develop the training, provide the training and get folks carted on aircraft.
[00:14:24] Speaker A: Right. Well, the application for the use of UA's on wildfires is tremendous as far as being able to, for situational awareness for our crews on the ground, you can put up unmanned and crewed aircraft, and instead of maybe a helicopter that could be dropping buckets somewhere and you can actually go and check out the line or mapping and like you said, prescribed fire or even back burning or all the above, all that stuff.
[00:14:55] Speaker B: Yeah. I think the thing about what we're doing, I mean, I was around when we couldn't buy our way onto the fire line. You know, drones were a four letter word. And, you know, it's like, no, we don't want that on division. But now, I mean, it's just the demand is through the roof and the demand far out exceeds our capacity to staff and meet the needs. So. But the things that we are doing are what you just mentioned. Right. Situational awareness, we can, you know, the traditional way we look for hotspots is to get into 20, 2010 or 20 person line, right. And we're going to grid use the back of our hand, heads down, and, you know, all these overhead hazards and all that. And it maybe takes us an hour or 2 hours or 3 hours to push a crew through a division gridding. We can put a drone up, literally, you know, fly that section of line and back in a site in a battery cycle for 20 minutes and tell you if you have anything. Right.
[00:15:47] Speaker A: So they have an infrared kind of.
[00:15:49] Speaker B: Yeah. It's got a thermal camera. Right. So it allows. That provides two things. It's an efficiency thing. Right. It's a safety thing because we're not putting people right but it's also like a shift or a tour or a career extender. Right? Like. Cause now you can just kind of hang tight until we find something and can tell you exactly where it's at. And we're saving all of that kind of energy and exposure, you know? And you mentioned aerial ignition. It's in high demand. It's super effective and efficient. We can fly daytime, nighttime, in smoky conditions. It's very effective. As we look out the window today and see it's very smoky. And a lot of aircraft, traditional aircraft, maybe aren't flying, but our drones can. And I think the exciting thing is, are the things that we're not doing yet. Right. The things we haven't developed, you know, long line logistics support.
I often comment and think, you know, I would love to take somebody's ia pack from 45 pounds down to ten pounds. How could we do that? How could we support that crew logistically?
[00:16:48] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:48] Speaker B: Right. I mean, if we, or even just somebody having to haul a jerry can down a canyon and up the other side during a burnout operation, if I can sling that over. How many times do you do that in a career and how much time does that take? And again, back to exposure and risk and just leveraging the technology to be a better workforce for what's coming at us in the next quarter century is super exciting. And this program is just right at the tip of that spear.
[00:17:18] Speaker A: Yeah, that is exciting. Well, you hear about drone delivery for packages at your doorsteps and things like that too, so. Yeah, why not? On the fireline?
[00:17:27] Speaker B: Why not? Why not?
[00:17:29] Speaker A: That'd be great. Here, just take my Paxil while I.
[00:17:32] Speaker B: Pack out of here. Yeah, we need a cubie. Whatever. Right. So just trying to define those things that are important to the community and then develop solutions.
[00:17:41] Speaker A: So what do you see as challenging for the program or most challenging about your job?
[00:17:48] Speaker B: Education? You know, I think their education's just sharing what it is and what it means to have an aviation program like this. So we're gonna have a 250 ish remote pilot bureau and a 200, 250 ish remote systems aircraft bureau. So that's like an air force. That's a 3000% increase in our existing, existing aviation footprint. That requires a lot of management and leadership. A lot. Right. So. So that's a challenge is trying to communicate that and educate folks, because everybody in the bureau, top to bottom, bottom to top, wants to make good decisions and make the best use of a BLM dollar for the bureau mission and what we're doing out there on behalf of the public. And so that's a challenge, right? That's like, here's this new technology, here's this new thing, you know, seemingly I can buy it off the shelf and go fly it, what's the big deal? But it's, we're the government, you know, we can buy iPhones off the shelf, we can buy things like lots of things off the shelf, but we still want to make sure that people are set up for success and are able to use it safely and efficiently. So as I mentioned earlier, there is no training by and large beyond this kind of basic. And, and so we need to develop that and we need staff to maintain that and we need staff to deliver that. And then we have aircraft inspections and pilot refreshers and all of these things, you know, UA's and the bureau is going to be in a constant state and really for the DOI and interagency community is a constant state of what I call RDTTE, research, development, training, testing and evaluation.
[00:19:31] Speaker A: Well, I'm sure the technology is constantly changing, constantly changing.
[00:19:34] Speaker B: So it takes staff to manage that too. So I'm really excited about, and it's a challenge, but probably the most exciting part of the job is that challenge, right? It's an opportunity to, and this has probably been the highlight of my time in this position is that it's been this program and this technology has been like a convener of bureau directorates and programs. Like it's brought us together in a way that I had never experienced before. So, because it's one aviation program for the bureau, so we all have to kind of work together. You know, fire is just a program area we serve, right? Just like archaeology or law enforcement. And so it's brought everybody together and that's, you know, challenge, opportunity. The BLM is, I think, situated in a way because of kind of our size and our aviation culture in the bureau, the leadership that exists, you know, with Grant Beebe and his peer group in higher that they recognize and respect and appreciate that, hey, you know, a 3000% increase in aviation, 3000% increase in pilots and aircraft that we have to manage. You know, think just kind of think hangar. Like what does it take to manage a hangar? And that's gonna be tough to do with the status quo. So, you know, dear BLM, what do we wanna do, right? And so that's exciting. And it's taken some years to kind of communicate that message. And I do feel like we're at a place now where we're all kinda reading the same sheet of music and it's just a matter of really, I think, determining what we want to do with this technology and this program moving forward. And then how do we set ourselves up as a program for success and a bureau for success as we look at this next 25 years?
[00:21:13] Speaker A: So what do you see as the next 25 years?
[00:21:15] Speaker B: Well, you know, I think we have a real opportunity to address some of the things that are important in our organization today. You know, we talk a lot about mental health and work life balance and.
[00:21:30] Speaker A: Just retention of firefighters.
[00:21:31] Speaker B: Yeah, recruitment, retention, all of those things are collateral duty, the strain of collateral duty. Those are all factors that I think UA's can help, not UA's, you know, the physical aircraft and remote pilots. But it's an opportunity for us to kind of look at how we structure our organization in this pioneering technology and what we want to do to address a 3000% increase. There's an opportunity there to kind of, you know, staff a program and right size it and have it mission focused in a field that is attractive to a lot of people that want to come do that. And, you know, I look at, if I think about workforce development, I'm thinking about the 8th graders today. You know, I've got three kids. I'm thinking about my 7th grader, my 10th grader and my 12th grader. What type of a workplace do they want to move into and what do they want to do? That's where my focus is at. So if I look at the next 25 years, the most important thing for us to do as a bureau in the next five years is provide a very, very, very strong foundation for this program and this bureau to grow upon moving forward in 25 years. Looking back, I don't want, you know, people that are working in that era to look back and say, man, I wish those guys back in 2024 and 2025 would have pulled their heads out of their, you know what, like, we have enough organizational history and lessons and aviation lessons of the last 2030 and 40 years to inform what right looks like moving forward. And we don't need something bad to happen to do that. We just need to, you know, reflect on our history and our lessons and be a student of humans and be a student of organizations and really lean into these things that we say are important and set this bureau up for the next 25 years.
[00:23:16] Speaker A: That's good advice for any program area that we're trying to grow 100%. But I think of just the issues with recruitment right now and is there a shift in what people want to do? And there's maybe a lot of people out there don't want to be firefighters on the line. That physical labor, there's a lot of people that do. I loved it when I was out doing ia. And you're out of getting to see cool places, but you could do that and be a techie person and not have to be like a firefighter, per se, but you could go to cool places.
[00:23:52] Speaker B: Yeah, there'll be no shortage of work, that's for sure. So it is a matter of just.
[00:23:57] Speaker A: Getting the program support and building that program.
[00:23:59] Speaker B: Yeah. And identifying, you know, the folks that want to do it and recruiting them. And I think that's one of the things that I do pay attention to, is aligning. Right. Aligning the talent with the mission and a lifestyle that people want to live. You know, I think one of the challenges of looking at fires, you know, I don't have any direct experience. I just kind of keep my ears open around campus. Right. Or the training center. And that, you know, a lot of folks want it. All right. I want a family life, and I want to go on fires and have that adventure, but I don't want to be gone all the time, like, so how do we structure? Right. And I think, again, it's just a matter of identifying those missions, that mission, program. Mission and staffing to account for what the job and the priorities are.
[00:24:42] Speaker A: Absolutely. I think you kind of answered this through that last question a little bit. But how has the usage of UA's improved ability to fight fire in general?
[00:24:51] Speaker B: Well, I can't see that I've coined this. It might have been Kelly Boyd, but Kelly Boyd is the UA's air ignition specialist for the Forest Service, which is to say, he is the UA's air ignition specialist for the interagency fire community. And his quote is, we've taken back the night, you know, for probably when you and I started, we did a lot of firefighting at night, and then it seemed like there was an error where we didn't do so much because of the risk with snags and rocks, all the inherent hazards that exist at night on the fire line. And ua's we're back like it's night. I mean, it is a nighttime swing shift, smoky condition tool that just excels. And so I see that aspect of it, whether it's just situational awareness or dropping balls as absolute game changer. Absolute game changer. Being that deep lighter for hand ignition.
[00:25:43] Speaker A: Operation, which is, like you said, dropping balls.
[00:25:45] Speaker B: Yeah, dropping balls. Right.
[00:25:47] Speaker A: Ignition.
[00:25:47] Speaker B: Being able to, you know, put a drone up on a ridgeline and walk the fire line down with air ignition in a very, I mean, just precise. And it keeps the intensities and severity down and holding more manageable, like. So that's a game changer. I think one of the most fun things that I've got to do is, you know, you're out there 0500, and you're flying the fire line for that division, and we'll have the tv set up much like that tv right there, and we'll cast what we're seeing of that tv. And so everybody, the division and all of the opt, and all of the, you know, the hotshot supes are gaggled up and they're getting a look at their line without having to get in.
[00:26:27] Speaker A: A helicopter, get that ir flight that they might not get from the night before.
[00:26:32] Speaker B: Absolutely. And they're getting it all. And we just, we take a video and then we pull the card, we scrub it down into like a one or two minute 4k video. They airdrop it to all of their people so everybody can see it. Right. And I just think that that's a cool, it's a cool, like, everybody comes together, you share the intel, they go out and do their work, they come back. Hey, can you go take a look at this again? And it seems very, very simple, but it's just so efficient and useful. Right. And I really appreciate that. I think the other way, it's changed. It is unfortunate circumstances like investigations and things like that, you know, that's become, UA's has become a real tool that you want to have in your back pocket for those situations. And we've had to do that a couple of times. And again, as tragic as those situations are, providing documentation and footage and to give us that understanding of what happened and why, you know, we're a learning community and we want to learn what happened. And Ua's is serving that side of the firehouse as well.
[00:27:31] Speaker A: Yeah. And just not for accident investigations, but also for fire investigation. I know a couple of fire investigators that are carted Ua's pilots and use that to get that aerial view. And I know I've, when I did fire investigation, a lot of times you're out there and you've got a large area to cover and, boy, would be nice to see this from the air, to see what the burn patterns look like from. And that's another opportunity to do that for sure, or for surveillance for people out who's out there watching.
[00:28:04] Speaker B: Well, that's like a four letter word, too. I think that was like, in the early years, it was like, I think that's why people were against the drone program. Right.
You're watching you, and it's like, well, fair enough, but we're beyond that. I think it's become such a thing globally that it's.
[00:28:19] Speaker A: Well, it's kind of. Well, and everyone has cell phones now, too, right? With videos, people are watching people everywhere.
[00:28:24] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
[00:28:25] Speaker A: And then with firefighters, we have the location based services, too. And that was kind of contentious a little bit. At the same time, you're, you know, just watching where we're going all the time, big brother. But it's actually, you know, for their safety and for sure.
[00:28:39] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, I can't speak for the law enforcement mission. I think that's a program that we're really looking forward to helping evolve in the BLM. But by and large, that surveillance or people watching mission isn't that prevalent on the wildland fireside. You know, it's really, like I said, just situational awareness and use for tactics. Yep, exactly.
[00:29:02] Speaker A: For firefighters. Yeah, I think about. Yeah. For one of the other applications being mice, we have a lot of areas to cover and some of these fires that are getting so big that you can't possibly cover them on foot sometimes.
[00:29:19] Speaker B: Yeah. And that speaks to, in some ways, that speaks to the evolution of the program. You know, when we started in 2015 and 16, we were flying this aircraft called a three doctor solo. On a good day, it had like six to nine minutes of battery life. You maybe could get it, you know, half mile a mile away from where you launched. It crashed 50% of the time. You never took your eyes off of it. And so that was the kind of extent of the technology in 2016. Now, today we're flying aircraft that are going out three, four, 5 miles, 2030 minutes of battery life, and you never have your eyes on it because it's around the corner and it's in the smoke. And that's a whole different training qualification. But the point is, well, what's next? And how does that shape and shift the training standards and requirements? If I can operate an aircraft that's going to be in the air for an hour and five or 10 miles from home, that's a little bit different than the basic required training. Operating an aircraft that is only up for ten minutes and never further than a mile from home.
So that gets back to that, you know, earlier topics and conversations and points about staffing and the program. Like, there's the now, but tomorrow's tomorrow and it's coming. Or, you know, are we postured to embrace it when it comes, or are we going to be like, man, we're not ready for this?
[00:30:34] Speaker A: Well, I can see, you know, firefighters as well as yourself being hot shot, maybe it's kind of nice to not have to be on the fire line and do that after a while and have this to go to.
[00:30:46] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:30:47] Speaker A: Just like a lot of them will do other types of jobs to other type of support jobs. But add this to the list.
[00:30:54] Speaker B: Yeah. I think this is a really nice compliment to the bureau.
[00:30:56] Speaker A: Yeah. So if someone was interested in becoming a remote pilot or interested in the program, how would they. How would they go about doing that?
[00:31:05] Speaker B: Yeah. So right now, everybody is operating in a collateral duty just like any other fire qualification, by and large. Right. So it's working through state aviation managers, unit aviation managers, to kind of express. And that's the same. Right. So again, I mentioned earlier, this is a bureau program. Fire is a program area we serve. So it's the same message for the archaeologists, the wildlife biologists, law enforcement, fire staff that want to pursue this.
Start that conversation with unit aviation manager and state aviation manager.
We have some supplements and some forms and some things that we, the state aviation managers, are well versed in that help communicate what that looks like from a training standpoint, a cost standpoint, commitment standpoint, because of all the proficiency and currency requirements. That's the first stop. Start the conversation. And I think we're at the point now where it's like, that's the individual perspective, but how does that fit into a district or a state or a national program or center's overall strategy for UA's utilization and what makes the most sense. But we collect those once a year, and that informs what we're going to order, how much we're going to order, where it's going, and then that informs a training plan and then a training schedule, and. And then we deliver that training and send people on their way.
[00:32:23] Speaker A: So it'd be like any other type of qualification, then you want to pursue something different, maybe?
[00:32:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
Yeah. It's sexy, but it's a lot of work. It's a lot of commitment.
[00:32:35] Speaker A: Well, you have to get your pilots, basically, your pilot's license. FAA first, right?
[00:32:40] Speaker B: Yeah, the 107. Yeah, that's the first step.
[00:32:44] Speaker A: Awesome. So in the last episode, we talked with heli tech crew members about problems with drone incursions. And those are aircrafts that enter airspace, enter wildfires that are not welcome because we don't know they're there. And they can shut down operations, especially aviation operations. Can you explain the difference between using like a certified UA's to those that fly into temporary restricted airspace.
[00:33:11] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So I mean, of course you're well versed on if you fly. We can't. That campaign that is meant to reach, you know, the, probably the public or the recreational drone operators. And again, I mean, it's like, yeah, you've got an aircraft with a 4k camera and you've got this fire out your backyard. I mean, who wouldn't want the footage? And it's tempting. And of course, that's why that campaign is so important that, you know, if you are flying, we, we can't, because you just can't see those drones in the airspace. And we've, we've, even for lack of a better word, I mean, they're, we've tried to like sticker or put lights on our aircraft so they're easier to see and it's still, they're impossible to.
[00:33:49] Speaker A: See, like, especially if it's smokey or something.
[00:33:51] Speaker B: Yeah, you just can't see it. You know, for the helicopter pilots and the fixed wing pilots coming in, they just can't see it. So of course, that's why that's important, to have that campaign on our side, on the trained and certified side, qualified side.
That's the very thing that we're trained to do. Right. So it's, you know, when you go to S 373 to become a UASP trainee and then taskbook and all of that stuff, it's not about operating the aircraft, it's about commscripts and working with air attack and coordinating and deconflicting airspace and talking to hellabase and all of the people that have a stake in the safety of that airspace. And in that regard, you're, the UA's are just like a retardant plane or a helicopter with a bucket, like you're in the stack.
You've got to communicate. And you are the lowest priority. UA's is the lowest priority because we can see and avoid. They can't, you know, everybody else can't see and avoid. And that is a training and a class and a qualification. And we, the IfUAs committee under NIAC and the folks that are stewards of that qualification and those trainings take a lot of pride in the status of that qualification and the operations there. And so that's, the overall difference is really just how we communicate. Coordinates conflict with air attack and other aviation assets so that we don't have a mishap. And if we don't have those things in place, we don't leave the ground. We don't leave the ground. It's only when we have approval to do a mission at the request of division and Ops and we get approval from air attack that we do that. And even still, it requires a lot of communication and coordination. And what's different about UA's, of course, is that we're on the ground with FM radios and everybody in the stack is on their AM Victor and they're having to communicate. They're able to communicate. We can listen on Am, but we don't communicate on AM. So that's unique. And I give a lot of credit to the air attack community, aerial supervision community, AobDs, the hell abase hell attack folks that, the helicopter folks that see that for what it is and have really made an effort to roll us into that airspace operation over the last seven or eight years and really ensure that's a proud group. The people that operate in that stack and I, we're just thankful and grateful that we've been able to work with them and develop that training and have integrated pretty dang successfully, in my opinion.
[00:36:18] Speaker A: So you're working a lot with the air attack. So they're up there. And how would that work with using a UA's? Because they're kind of the eyes in the sky already for the fire. How would UA's benefit that operation? Benefit what, I guess benefit what they're seeing or what they're doing?
[00:36:39] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean it's, you know, I think, and I've never been an air attack, so it's a little bit of speculation on my part, but that they're, you know, they're the aerial supervision, that's airspace safety is their number one thing. And then, you know, not doing divisions job is the other job. Right. Like, you know, they can provide some communication on what they're observing, but at the end of the day they're in orbit and it's smoky. They got a lot of, I was.
[00:37:05] Speaker A: Going to say that. And they're higher in the air.
[00:37:06] Speaker B: Higher in the air and they got a lot going on. I mean, I can only imagine what's going on in, you know, over in region six right now, there's a lot going on and it's constant communication, radio chatter, AM and FM. Right. People on the ground want to talk to them. People in the air want to talk to them. They're providing the clearance into the airspace.
And so what can UA's provide? Well, they, you know, from a division standpoint, which is about all we can really do, we can't do a whole fire stuff. We can spread people around the fire on various divisions, but that, it's back to what we talked about. It's situational awareness. What are you seeing? What's over that hill? We want to do this. Does this make sense? Well, let me, let's have a look and we just pop it up after we've been given clearance from air attack. You know, we've got a request from division to fly this line, see if we've got any spots in the green or we want to see around the corner and see if their plan is going to work. And we request that from clearance from air attack. Air attack gives it and we follow protocol and do the mission.
[00:38:02] Speaker A: Great. Yeah, no, I know you mentioned that we can't fly if you do basically entering our airspace. But there's a really good website. The FAA has the know before you fly site too, and they just have a wildfire component. So for people to understand what's going on on the fire and why they shouldn't be going out there, be a good site for people to look at and just know before they fly.
[00:38:28] Speaker B: Yep. Yeah. Again, I think it's a really important campaign that you guys are leading.
[00:38:32] Speaker A: And yeah, even with that, we still have a lot of drone incursions happening.
[00:38:37] Speaker B: Yeah, but less.
[00:38:38] Speaker A: Yeah, less.
[00:38:38] Speaker B: I think it's less. I mean, I just paying attention to the early years and I think there'll be some changes coming just from, even from an FAA standpoint. But education seems to be working in my opinion. Yeah, we have incursions for sure, but it's kind of like the Smokey library campaign. It takes some time. Right. Like it's a message and, and it.
[00:38:55] Speaker A: Evolves too, I think.
[00:38:57] Speaker B: I mean, that brings up a good point. You know, we talk about the next 25 years, we talked about the workforce, we focused on 8th graders and you know, that education campaign, you know, is probably better geared to fourth, 5th, 6th graders and not the adults. Right. Because that's really the folks that are a, have an interest in UA's or B, may enter our workforce at some point, but it's the kids that are be like, hey, dad, you shouldn't be flying that drone. Right? Like it just, well, like with smokey bear.
[00:39:24] Speaker A: Hey, we should be putting this campfire out.
[00:39:26] Speaker B: That's right. Yeah. So that's something I'd like to see in the next handful of years is a little bit more just broad engagement with our, with the youth to cultivate a little bit of passion for aviation in UA's to, you know, posture our bureau up for success with future recruitment. Right. But also the education piece. Right. You know, understand the tech for sure, but those things, like, if you fly, we can't. That's an important message, and we probably can't say it enough and deliver it enough. So that's something I've got my eye on, is if we've got the room or capacity to invest a little bit more in that.
[00:39:58] Speaker A: Yeah. And we can help you out.
[00:40:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:40:01] Speaker A: Help deliver that message any way we can.
[00:40:04] Speaker B: Yeah, great.
[00:40:05] Speaker A: For sure. So is there anything else you want to talk about that we maybe haven't covered?
[00:40:11] Speaker B: You know, I think just broadly, what's the real time status of the program? And, you know, where are we at, where we headed? And as I mentioned earlier, you know, we're coming out of a five year hiatus. We're retiring our existing fleet. We're transitioning to new compliant aircraft. Operative word, they're being transitioning. So we're in a transition period. Right. So we're entering kind of our third distinction era of the BLM program, and that's going to take some time. Right. So of those 70 remote pilots that are out there carted and current in the bureau, we have to get them new aircraft and get them trained on that aircraft. Yeah.
[00:40:54] Speaker A: That's one of the things I was going to ask is what type of aircraft? And then if you switch aircraft, there's different.
[00:41:01] Speaker B: Another training.
[00:41:02] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:41:02] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Not unlike, you know, normal aviation. Right. If you're trained to fly on a Cessna, whatever, and you're moving into a king air, there's a train. Right. So this transition period is going to take us a year or two for a variety of reasons, but so it's just, you know, communicating and, you know, encouraging and imploring all of our stakeholders and program areas and directorates to be patient with us as we try our hardest and try our best and we do. Myself, Bobby Isley, and the NAO, we're pretty passionate about this, but we're also passionate about doing it right. And we're passionate about not biting off more than we can chew as a program, being able to manage and sustain what we've got. So that transition period, like I said, it'll take a year or two to get folks, existing folks, moved into new aircraft and get the rest of the program areas in the bureau back up and running. To answer your question, what aircraft are we moving to right now? We're moving to three different aircraft. The BLM, by and large, is because of the advancements in technology with UA's in the fire world. We've categorized them into four types. Type one, type two are the big call when needed. We don't own any of those. We contract that for fire when and where we need it, and then type three and type four. Type three is the aircraft that's larger, heavy lift, that's our aerial ignition platform, and then type four is all the smalls underneath that. And by and large, the bureau can subsist on type four UA's. And so we're looking at the Skydio X tend as our DOI partners and the free fly Astro, as are our DOI partners. And we're really excited about it. We've really been waiting for, you know, two years for a reliable aircraft to make its way to the market, and we're there. And so we've been flying and testing the Skydio X ten. Bobby and I are taking the Astro route next week to Montana for a project to give it, to put it through its paces. Our Alaska UA's folks just came down and we mobilize them to a fire in California yesterday, and they're going to fly the Skydio X ten and put it through its paces. And then the forest service has been flying the free fly altax, which is that heavy lift that we're transit. The DOI is transitioning to. The forest service has been flying it for three years, and so it's been through its paces.
[00:43:13] Speaker A: So, like the type one of type three or type.
[00:43:16] Speaker B: Okay, yep. So type three, I mean, that's the heavy lift aircraft for us. So type three and type four are agency owned, operated, and then type one and type two, because of cost and sophisticated nature in which they fly or contracted.
[00:43:30] Speaker A: Got it. They're kind of like the vlats of the air tanker world. Large air tanker compared to.
[00:43:37] Speaker B: And that's its own program and it has its own growing pains to go through. You know, none of these systems, none of them were made to operate in the wildland fire environment. So smoke, dirt, turbulence, all of those things.
It's just back to what I said. It's a constant evolution and modification, learning, and it's really pioneering days, of course, that's. Pioneering days are exciting.
There's never a dull moment.
[00:44:04] Speaker A: How long can a typical aircraft then fly for?
[00:44:08] Speaker B: So the larger. Yeah, the larger type one and type two have long endurance and loitering times hours and greater range excess of 510 15 miles. Our type three and type four are 20 to 30 minutes of endurance. And then in that kind of two to five mile range, you can get.
[00:44:29] Speaker A: A lot done in that you can.
[00:44:30] Speaker B: Get a lot done. Yeah, you can get a lot done.
[00:44:33] Speaker A: And are these are restrictions, like, on wind?
[00:44:37] Speaker B: Yeah. Every manufacturer comes with their specs. I mean, 2025 miles an hour sustained is kind of the threshold. It eats a lot of battery. And, you know, if you're looking for quality imagery, you're probably not going to get it when it's windy because it's moving around. Yeah. But if you're just, you know, quick periscope up or, you know, maybe just a quick, quick lap for some SA. We fly in 20 pretty regularly.
[00:45:02] Speaker A: Awesome. I've learned a lot today about so happy, the remote pilots and remote systems program. Ua's.
[00:45:10] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And I think if you really wanted to dive into the systems and what they can do, you know, whether it's a future episode or whatever, part two of this, I would really encourage you to connect with Bobby Isley in our shop and, and just he, I mean, he's like, he's just so brilliant. You know, he just knows so much about these systems and what they can and can't do. And there's an education component to that, to our kind of, our constituency is people want it. They want to do this thing and it's like, well, we. You want to do this thing, but that doesn't exist yet, or we haven't figured out the integration yet because none of it's built for what we do and. Well, how long is it going to take to integrate?
Years, months? I don't know. We don't know. Right. The parts or pieces. And anyways, it's an invitation and encouragement to you if you wanted a part two. I mean, in just talk systems and what it takes for Bobby to be the fleet manager for the bureau. And it would be entertaining.
[00:46:03] Speaker A: I'm sure it would.
Yeah. And to manage. Yeah. And to manage the fleet, you have to make sure they're all operational and know all the pieces and parts of all those aircraft. So.
[00:46:14] Speaker B: Yeah. Yep. He's kind of like, he's got his own little laboratory over there next to the hangar. And there's always, you know, aircraft in various states of repair and various states of, you know, procurement and delivery and all that. So, yeah. Encourage anybody that wants to see that, to stop by and see him and see that Orlando see us and ask questions. But we're excited for this next era.
[00:46:35] Speaker A: All right. And if people are interested, they get a hold of their aviation folks.
[00:46:41] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:46:42] Speaker A: Talk UA's and got to be serious about it because it's commitment.
[00:46:46] Speaker B: It's a commitment. Yep. And right now, it's a collateral duty.
[00:46:49] Speaker A: Commitment like most everything else. Yeah, but that's also what makes our jobs kind of fun, because we get to step aside and do other things.
[00:46:58] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's true.
[00:47:01] Speaker A: Interesting.
[00:47:02] Speaker B: The collateral duty piece is at least on the UA's side. I'll just speak to UA's, of course, is the second and third and fourth order effects of the collateral duty. Yeah. It's one thing to say that this is an addition to your day job, but for the UA's program to exist, it's collateral duty. Training, development, curriculum development, training, maintenance, curriculum, maintenance, training, delivery, all. So there's that person or those people that are collider duty pilots are also to their day job. They're also helping train. Right. And so there's three or four or five orders of effect there. And that's what we're really trying to resolve in the BLM is again, recruitment retention. Well, let's look at the factors that are challenging us. Let's look at the factors of increasing the bureau aviation footprint by 3000%. Let's look at these factors and try to resolve them for the betterment of the bureau, for the betterment of employee experience, for the betterment of being a place that people want to work.
It's right there.
[00:47:59] Speaker A: Yeah, because it's not just for fire. I mean, there's a lot of application, a lot of uses for UA's and just land management.
[00:48:05] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:48:06] Speaker A: Sure. Well, thank you, Matt, for joining me today and for the 29th episode of Wildfire Matters to tell us more about the use of UA's on wildfires and why you went to remote pilots remote systems program.
And it makes sense. It's not as like easy to say, though, as you guess.
[00:48:31] Speaker B: I know, I know.
[00:48:32] Speaker A: Rm.
[00:48:33] Speaker B: Believe me, I know.
[00:48:34] Speaker A: Yeah, the acronym doesn't work.
[00:48:36] Speaker B: Yeah, we're trying to figure out a way to make it just roll off the tongue, but we're not there yet.
[00:48:41] Speaker A: It's just remote. Yeah, you're doing remote stuff with it. Aviation. For those of you listening, thank you. And if you have questions or comments or even suggestions on different topics of our podcast, please email them to BLM FA NIFC comments Dot gov and use Wildfire Matters podcast in the subject line. To learn more about NIFC or the BLM, please visit our website, www. Dot and follow us at BLM fire on Facebook x, formally Twitter and Instagram, and join us next time when I hope to spark a conversation with a member of Dispatch. They play a vital role, support role, just as UA's in our wildland fire management, and I know they're kind of strapped right now with all the activity going on, and looks like things aren't going to get any better for us in the next month or so. So it might be a while before we're back, but hopefully we'll get somebody from dispatch to tell us about the critical role they play in managing or helping us manage wildfires, and until then, stay safe and be wildfire aware.
