- Dates: April 28 – 30, 2026
- Location: FWC Training Facility, Florida
- Partner: Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC)
- Equipment: IGNIS System, IGNIS III Mini (Live Demo)
- Mission: Train 15 cross-regional personnel on piloting the IGNIS system for prescribed burns.
Florida fire management plays by its own rules. When your burn unit is a deep southern marsh, you can't always just drive a truck up to the fireline. Sometimes, the only way in is directly from the water.
At the end of April, three Drone Amplified trainers headed south to work alongside the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC). Our goal was straightforward: help 15 personnel from across the state—managing everything from northern pine forests to deep, wet marshes—get up to speed as field-ready aerial ignition pilots.
To manage these burns safely and effectively, the crews train on the IGNIS system. By accurately dropping chemical ignition spheres from a drone, operators can initiate prescribed fire from the air, keeping ground crews out of the thick of the hazards.
Putting in the Reps
We kicked things off indoors, spending the first day breaking down the mechanics of the IGNIS payload and the aircraft itself. But theory only gets you so far; the only way to build true proficiency is to put in the reps outside.
We spent the next two days running intensive flight exercises. To make sure everyone had maximum stick time, we split the 15 students into small, focused groups. We didn't just run through standard flight operations—we hammered home payload management and emergency procedures. When you're operating over complex, unforgiving terrain, you have to rely on muscle memory, and that simply takes practice.
High-Volume Burns in Unique Environments
The environmental challenges the FWC faces are incredibly unique. For crews working in South Florida, getting a prescribed burn going in a wet ecosystem requires dropping a high volume of ignition spheres to ensure the fire actually takes.
Adding to that logistical hurdle, some of these crews fly their operations straight off the deck of an airboat. When you are launching and recovering in tight spaces out on the water, the gear has to work flawlessly, and the pilot must know the system inside and out. Preparing the operators for that exact, practical application was the core focus of our outdoor drills.
Field Demo: The IGNIS III Mini
While we had the team together in the field, we took the opportunity to put our new IGNIS III Mini in the air for a live demo.
Because space is at such a premium for crews operating out of UTVs or airboats, we wanted to demonstrate exactly how a more compact system operates in a real-world setting. It gave the FWC teams a firsthand look at how a smaller payload footprint can solve practical cargo constraints without sacrificing operational capability.
Ready for the Field
By the end of the week, all 15 FWC personnel were fully up and running. It was a highly productive three days, taking the group from an indoor systems overview to successfully executing complex flight maneuvers in the Florida heat.
They’ve now headed back to their respective districts across the state, fully equipped to safely integrate aerial ignition into their prescribed fire operations.
About Drone Amplified
Drone Amplified develops drone-based systems for hazardous environmental mitigation. We design hardware and software to support professionals working in wildfire and avalanche operations with tools intended to improve access, reduce exposure, and expand operational capability. Born out of research at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, we operate out of offices in Nebraska and New Jersey.