More than 100 drones distributed in all the regions of Greece will be available to the Fire Brigade and the Civil Protection for this year’s fire season by integrating them into the mechanism of forest area surveillance.
Their role, Civil Protection sources said, will be crucial in surveillance, immediate reporting of incidents and cross-referencing information. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs – Drones) will operate on a 24-hour basis providing a continuous view of the area they are monitoring and have been deployed in all 13 regions of the country. According to Civil Protection sources, strategic locations have been selected to monitor forest and peri-urban areas, as well as high-risk zones or areas with a history of fires and difficult access. The drones are equipped with a thermal camera, a high zoom optical camera, a laser rangefinder system, GPS and telemetry systems.
As the Minister of Climate Crisis and Civil Protection, Evangelos Tournas, recently stressed during the 5th Forum of the Association for the Protection and Development of Hymettus (S.P.A.Y.) on “Hymettos 2030: Prevention, Resilience & Governance “we cannot deal with natural disasters with tools and logics of the past”, while stressing the need for continuous adaptation of planning and operational preparedness to the new data created by the climate crisis.
Furthermore, Mr. Turnas reiterated that the operational doctrine is based on “Surveillance, early warning, immediate mobilization of forces and rapid intervention to contain the fire in the first critical minutes”, while stressing that “the key to effective response is first to limit starts as much as possible and second to intervene in a timely manner.”
As for the distribution of drones by region, 27 drones will operate in Attica, 7 in Sterea Greece, 7 in Sterea Greece, 5 in Thessaly, 5 in Epirus, 3 in West Macedonia, 15 in Central Macedonia, 7 in East Macedonia and Thrace, 4 in North Aegean, 3 in South Aegean, 4 in Crete, 8 in Peloponnese, 7 in West Greece and 5 in Ionian.
In addition, during this year’s fire season, the Fire Brigade and the Civil Protection will have at its disposal for operational use, three specially designed mobile surveillance units with drones for direct operational support in areas where there are fires or increased risk. These units will be located in Attica, Thessaloniki and Crete, but will be able to cover other areas depending on operational needs. In addition, competent sources note, they will be equipped with multi-reserve communication systems for uninterrupted link-flow of visual data to operations centres, multi-screen control consoles for full surveillance and advanced processing units that ensure crews have access to critical data in real time.
Furthermore, these mobile centers will have the ability to move instantly where needed, and from there the drones will conduct continuous surveillance flights, transmitting real-time imagery and data.
How drones work
Drones patrol forest and other high-risk areas, both during the day and at night. During the night hours, as was made known by Civil Protection sources, they utilize their thermal camera, through which limited visibility is essentially replaced by thermal imaging of the area. In this way, according to the same sources, they are able to detect thermal foci or suspicious indications of smoke and fire in good time, even in inaccessible places. The image is transmitted in real time to the Regional Operations Centres as well as to the National Coordination Centre for Operations and Crisis Management (NCCECM), providing a live, high-resolution image and also on mobile tablets or smartphones for front-line operators, ensuring that everyone has the same real-time view of the field. When a fire occurs, they contribute through rapid localisation of the outbreak, even in the first few minutes of its occurrence. Their role is also important, Civil Protection sources say, in direct guidance of operational forces, as the images they transmit are in real time and provide a continuous picture of the fire front.
This capability, as pointed out by relevant sources, is extremely important as the image provides instant operational insight and facilitates real-time decision making. At the same time, the same operational picture is also provided to the commanders of forces in the field via electronic devices (tablet-mobile), so that they have a complete picture of the fire and not only of the place where they are located. In this way they can, depending on the conditions that develop, immediately adjust the operational planning and the deployment of forces.
The drones are highly durable and incorporate two different sensors (thermal and optical) and sophisticated artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms, creating, as Civil Protection sources point out, “a seamless surveillance mechanism, offering the possibility of visual confirmation of the incident from long distances, identification of details in the field (e.g.e.g. type of vegetation, vehicle access), the immediate detection of thermal anomalies before they become visible to the naked eye, even during the night, or the progress of a fire in low visibility conditions in a smoke-laden environment’. At the same time, using artificial intelligence software, the exact geographic coordinates of the event are calculated in real time.
The drone operator scans/scans the area of responsibility and in case he detects a hot or smoky spot, using two different sensors, he focuses with optical-thermal zoom on the point of interest and informs the Fire Department, giving him the exact location of the incident with geographic coordinates of the incident). In addition, according to Civil Protection sources, for the rapid dissemination of critical information within the operation centers, the system incorporates an innovative instant alert function (“Panic Button”). The moment the drone operator detects a fire hotspot, activation of this button causes the instantaneous rearrangement of the video wall. The live image from the drone that detected the incident is automatically enlarged (pop-up) and displayed in the operations center.
At the same time, the Fire Brigade, by receiving aerial images and video in real time, can rapidly assess the incident, before the arrival of the operational response units, as to the priority of deployment – management of its operational forces (ground and air).
Finally, it is worth noting that the use of drones in forest firefighting has been significantly enhanced in recent years as 2024 was the first year of their widespread operational application, with the number of drones reaching 40, while in 2025 they increased to 80.
