{"id":311571,"date":"2026-06-18T10:18:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T10:18:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/311571\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T10:18:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T10:18:17","slug":"floridas-new-weapon-against-blazing-brush-fire-season-pellet-dropping-drones-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/311571\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida\u2019s new weapon against blazing brush fire season: Pellet-dropping drones"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Screenshot-2026-06-18-000322-e1781766408337-300x169.png\" class=\"attachment-medium size-medium wp-image-1143887\" alt=\"\"   loading=\"eager\"\/>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>VIDEO: This brush fire season has been one of the busiest in years in Florida. <\/p>\n<p>Tens of thousands of acres have burned, and firefighters say the threat is far from over.<\/p>\n<p>So far, more than 2,200 fires have burned\u2014not even halfway through 2026. The yearly average is just 2,400.<\/p>\n<p>Brush fires affect every taxpayer, and being careless costs money. The total budget for the Florida Forest Service is more than $181 million, and another $5 million has been spent so far in 2026 combatting brush fires.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis fire season has been the busiest in 15 years, approximately,\u201d Kevin MacEwen, with the FFS, said. \u201c(The) number of fires, (the) size of fires has increased our need to be ready.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The agency is armed with 10 helicopters and nearly 100 bulldozers, but a powerful new tool is now helping firefighters stay ahead of the flames. It\u2019s a drone.<\/p>\n<p>It is capable of targeting certain areas and sees hot spots the naked eye can\u2019t. <\/p>\n<p>It can also drop balls \u2014 about the size of a paintball \u2014 filled with chemicals that ignite fires to be used as flame barriers, stopping bigger fires in their tracks.<\/p>\n<p>WPLG-TV 10 Miami<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"VIDEO: This brush fire season has been one of the busiest in years in Florida. Tens of thousands&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":311572,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[129846,28,30,29,129448],"class_list":["post-311571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-fire-technology-news","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-wildland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311571\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}