Training on the use of UAVs for forest management and monitoring, supporting forest fire prevention, and fighting for the Lao Cai Provincial Forest Protection Department

In May 2024, Lao Cai Provincial Forest Protection Department organized a training course on the use of UAVs to collect field data for forest management and monitoring, supporting forest fire prevention and fighting for office staff of the Forest Protection Department, technical staff of Forest Protection Departments, and Forest Management Boards in the province. The activity aims to enhance the application of information technology and high-tech equipment for forest management and monitoring. The training course was conducted by Green Field Consulting and Development Co., Ltd. with a team of lecturers: MSc. Vu Van Thai and MSc. Ha Van Nghia.

The training course was attended by nearly 40 students and the presence of the Forest Protection Department’s leaders and officers of the Provincial Military Command. Trainees were instructed in flight safety theory, regulations on flight licenses in Vietnam, and responsible control. The field practice content includes 2 parts: i) Directly drawing a line at the scene as an example of a new fire, the next day using a UAV to determine the damaged area; ii) The Forest Protection Department receives information about an area with forest change the technical staff creates an automatic flight path on the controller and performs a verification flight at the scene. This data is used as input for updating forest developments.

Trainees were very enthusiastic in the training, actively discussing, asking questions, and presenting real-life situations in the field to clarify and help trainees feel secure in using UAVs. The students’ questions solved problems such as: i) What do you do when the drone runs out of battery or loses signal? ii) How to put the forest status map into the controller to know which lot is being flown, or put the boundary to be checked into the controller to take an action at the right location; iii) How to transmit image signals from the controller to the computer, large screen for many people to observe, support firefighting direction, or transmit signals to the provincial office so that leaders can directly monitor information at the scene. All questions showed the trainees’ interest and active learning spirit. The training course created a foundation for students to confidently apply UAVs to forest monitoring and management, firefighting search, and rescue.