Fire-paramedic service wants to fly its own drone

The Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service wants to buy an unmanned aerial vehicle to assist with emergency operations.

The departmentis asking the city for $32,000 to purchase a drone,a thermal imaging camera and training for its staff to deploythe unmanned aircraft.

The vehicles may be used when the fire-paramedic service conductswater rescues,fire-sceneassessments and reconnaissance, search and rescue operations, flood operations,wildfiremonitoring, incident analysis and duringhazardous-material calls, says a report fromthe fire-paramedic service to council's innovation committee.

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"The implementation of a UAV program would demonstrate the City of Winnipeg's commitment to ongoing improvement and the use of available technology to improve public safety and facilitate efficient use of taxpayer-provided funds," the fire-paramedic service writes.

The innovation committee will consider the report on Tuesday.