{"id":59420,"date":"2026-03-26T22:02:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T22:02:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durango-police-fire-agencies-to-use-drones-as-first-responders\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T18:43:35","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T18:43:35","slug":"durango-police-fire-agencies-to-use-drones-as-first-responders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durango-police-fire-agencies-to-use-drones-as-first-responders\/","title":{"rendered":"Durango police, fire agencies to use drones as first responders"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The government has the power to hold drone operators accountable when they operate the remote-control aircraft over restricted airspace, such as wildfires. Drones, growing in popularly among hobbyists, pose a heightened risk to air operations in fire-suppression efforts, because the small aircraft could cause collisions with tankers that drop fire retardant just a few hundred feet from the ground.<\/span>Associated Press file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The city of Durango is preparing to deploy drones \u2013 but only in certain types of emergencies, according to the police and fire chiefs.<\/p>\n

Durango Police Chief Brice Current and Durango Fire Protection District Chief Randy Black recently presented to City Council about how first responder drones can make their departments better prepared for emergencies.<\/p>\n

Drone first responders provide real-time information to officers, enabling better positioning for police and fire, and provide more context about the situation responders have been called to, they said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur response times are between six and eight minutes, and this response time is less than a minute. Especially because of the river and the traffic and everything else,\u201d Current said. \u201cIt\u2019s built perfect for Durango with a 2-mile radius.\u201d<\/p>\n

The drones have been leased for about $12,000 per year and have yet to be activated while the final infrastructure is set up, said city spokesman Tom Sluis.<\/p>\n

Current stressed the drones would not be used for public surveillance purposes, and that they would only be used for active service calls.<\/p>\n

He said the community wants:<\/p>\n

Safety.Consistency.Accountability.Privacy.<\/div>\n

Likewise, the police department needs:<\/p>\n

Faster eyes on the scene.Credible information.Better decisions.More options to deescalate situations.<\/div>\n

Current said the drones work this way: Dispatch receives a call, dispatches a drone within 10 seconds, and the drone arrives on scene with live video accessible to first responders. Responders \u2012 such as police officers or firefighters \u2012 respond with better knowledge of the scene they are entering. The drone returns to its base and logs the flight data.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery flight is logged, published and public-facing,\u201d Current said. \u201cThis data is important for the public and our strategic plan, which is constantly being updated so that we can measure stats, KPIs (key performance indicators) and measure the effectiveness of all these programs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Black said drones would help the fire department keep tabs on moving targets, such as those whose boats have capsized in the Animas River, as well as investigate suspicious smokestacks in the sky.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there\u2019s something growing on (during) a red flag day or something significant, accurate information for us is absolutely critical for us to be able to make those decisions and request those resources and get them there in a timely fashion,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The drones have a 2-mile radius, and they will be stationed at DFPD Station No. 2.<\/p>\n

Black said in an interview the drones provide different camera displays to different operators \u2012 police might see \u201csatellite\u201d images while firefighters might see a thermal vision heat signature. Displays are tuned to what specific responders need to see, he said.<\/p>\n

cburney@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

An earlier version of this story gave an incorrect lease amount for the drones. They will cost $12,000<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unpiloted aerial vehicles are a boon to emergency operations, agencies say<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":59421,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6286,5812,5831,6304,5737,5797,5736,5735,6303],"tags":[1820,1480,1065,971,28,52,360],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-59420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dh-trueanthem","category-durango-fire-protection-district","category-durango-police-department","category-emergency-planning","category-headlines","category-law-enforcement","category-local-news","category-news","category-technology-general","tag-dh-trueanthem","tag-durango-fire-protection-district","tag-durango-police-department","tag-emergency-planning","tag-headlines","tag-law-enforcement","tag-technology-general"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59420"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59420\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79801,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59420\/revisions\/79801"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59420"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=59420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}