Bainbridge Prepares Supports Water Rescue with Drone

On Monday morning, March 25, the Bainbridge Island Fire Department (BIFD) asked the Bainbridge Prepares Technical Operations Team (TechOps) for support in responding to a water rescue. A boat was in distress on South Beach Drive, and BIFD wanted TechOps to provide drone observation of the boat.

TechOps has been working to develop drone response capability that can provide support at incidents such as structure fires, wildland fires, search and rescue (SAR) on land and on water, and hazardous materials/pollution response. The drone response is referred to by the team as AirOps, for Air Operations.

After the City of Bainbridge Island Emergency Coordinator Anne LeSage secured a mission number from the state to authorize BP volunteers, TechOps volunteer Rakesh Bharania was able to respond to the scene within ten minutes. In coordination with the BIFD incident commander, Bharania launched the drone carrying a flotation device so that the drone could drop it in the water if a person had been swept off the distressed vessel.

Video recording started at launch and ended when the emergency was over; it focused on the immediate emergency scene.

The rescue was successful and there were no injuries to the people or dog aboard the vessel.

Drone Program

TechOps accelerated the development of the drone program after the grounding of the Walla Walla ferry last year. Feedback from emergency responders after the Walla Walla incident was that having an airborne observation platform could improve responses to similar emergencies.

The BP drone program first flew non-emergency missions for the 2023 Rotary Auction, assisting with traffic control and capturing video and images for the Rotary Club of Bainbridge Island to use for event promotion. Signs at the Rotary Sale alerted the public that flyovers were happening.

The water rescue on March 25th was the first activation of AirOps in an emergency.

AirOps consists of four volunteer pilots and personally owned drones. All of the drones can capture high-quality image and video for emergency response and conduct mapping and damage assessments. One drone—the one used in Monday’s rescue—has thermal imaging capability and can carry and drop a flotation device. 

Flotation device carried by drone

All of the team’s pilots are licensed by the FAA, have FEMA training on the incident command system, and are registered emergency management volunteers through Bainbridge Prepares.

BP’s AirOps team is one of the few drone teams in the Puget Sound region that has a water rescue capability.  

Interested in joining the team? Read more here.