Green Bay, WI, is leveraging technology to enhance its emergency response capabilities. The Green Bay Police Department and Green Bay Metro Fire Department recently showcased four new first responder drones. These fully-automated devices can provide officials with a bird’s-eye view of locations, allowing for more efficient allocation of resources.

Improved Situational Awareness

The drones will be stationed at the Green Bay Department of Public Works’ east-side and west-side facilities. According to Tom Denney, captain of the GBPD Community Services Division and head of the Drone as First Responder (DFR) program, the drones will help first responders get ‘eyes on the situation faster.’ This real-time intelligence is invaluable for making informed decisions and allocating resources effectively.

The fire department will also benefit from the drones, which can be used to assess structure fires and alarms. Ben Peters, life safety educator with GBMFD, noted that the drones will enable the department to ‘get eyes on it right away, to see how big our incident is.’ This will allow for more efficient deployment of resources and improved response times.

The contract for the drones is $80,000 per year. As of Monday morning, the drones had been flown by GBPD to 19 calls. An analysis from Flock shows that in 2024, there were 4,248 calls for service in Green Bay that could have been cleared by a drone without a patrol response, equivalent to the work of almost two full-time officers.

Original reporting: Appleton, WI News Feed (HLL/CB) — read the source article.