The City of Dallas is officially putting drones on the front lines of emergency response, and in some cases, they may arrive before police officers or firefighters do.
The Dallas Police Department has launched a new Drone as First Responder (DFR) program, using eight remotely operated Skydio drones stationed at Dallas Fire-Rescue locations across the city. The drones are controlled from the department’s Fusion/Real Time Crime Center and can respond to incidents within roughly a two-mile radius of their launch sites.
Instead of waiting for officers to arrive and assess a situation, drone pilots can quickly send aerial support to active calls, giving responding units a live view of what’s happening on the ground. City officials say that it can improve officer safety, reduce unnecessary responses, and help police prioritize emergencies more efficiently.
The locations for the drone docks weren’t chosen randomly. Dallas analyzed heat maps of police and fire calls to place the systems in areas where they could respond to most incidents.
According to Dallas Police Chief Daniel Comeaux, the technology has already proved useful during training exercises. “Even during our training, our pilots were able to clear three holding calls in an hour with one drone,” Comeaux says. “That alone proved their value to us.”
