DJI Matrice 300 RTK Found Hidden Hotspots in Clarkson Apartment Fire

A three-story apartment complex caught fire near SUNY Brockport in Clarkson, New York, and the fire moved through the attic faster than crews expected. When Brockport Fire Chief Adam Leggett looked up at the height of the building and realized his crews could not see half the hotspots from ground level, the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office launched a DJI Matrice 300 RTK with thermal imaging capability.

What happened next is exactly why law enforcement agencies are investing in professional-grade drone hardware and keeping FAA-certified remote pilots on standby for emergencies that cannot wait for conventional methods to catch up.

The Matrice 300 RTK spotted hotspots that would have required firefighters to climb to the third floor with handheld thermal cameras, enter the attic space, and hunt for fire in an unstable structure. Instead, the drone sent thermal images down to ground crews from a safe distance, and kept firefighters out of a situation that was already close to lethal.

The Monroe County Sheriff’s Office Drone Unit

The Monroe County Sheriff’s Office maintains a small unmanned aircraft system program with three FAA-licensed remote pilots on staff. The program operates two drones with different capabilities.

The DJI Mavic Pro is a compact aircraft that can be flown inside buildings and serves as a rapid-response tool for situations that do not require advanced sensors. The DJI Matrice 300 RTK is the platform designed for complex operations like thermal imaging during fires or LIDAR scanning for three-dimensional mapping and reconstruction.

The Matrice 300 RTK carries an HD camera and thermal detection equipment. The thermal camera detects heat signatures from the air, which means the drone can identify fire hotspots in real time and transmit imagery to ground crews without anyone having to physically reach those locations.

The county purchased the Matrice 300 RTK through a partnership with the Monroe County Community Planning and Engagement Department via a supplemental appropriation from the Board of Commissioners. The same platform is used to map county property for the GIS system and support economic development efforts.

For a fire in an attic three stories up, the Matrice 300 RTK is not just a convenience. It is the tool that makes the operation possible without escalating the risk to firefighters.

Why Drones Changed The First Response

As WHEC News 10 reported, the attic of the Clarkson apartment complex had no firewalls designed to stop fire from spreading across the entire ceiling space. It had a barrier, but not an actual firewall. It also had no sprinklers in the attic, which meant once the fire moved up, there was nothing mechanical stopping it from running the full length of the building.

Chief Leggett said the building met code even without sprinklers or dedicated firewalls in the attic. That is the kind of answer that sounds reasonable until you are watching the attic collapse into the third floor. Code compliance does not equal fire containment. It means the building met minimum standards when it was built. Standards do not account for how fire actually behaves.

The fire consumed the attic so completely that the entire ceiling gave way and dropped into the floor below. Thirty people were displaced. Four were treated for injuries at the scene. The Red Cross moved in to help residents who had nowhere to go.

When Chief Leggett said the drones were critical to the operation, he was not speaking in generalities. He was describing a specific problem: the attic was three stories up, and the fire had already spread across most of it before crews arrived.

Firefighters can see a fire from ground level. They cannot see around corners, through walls, or across the horizontal span of an attic space when they are standing on the street.

If you think drones have helped us with commercial filmmaking, photogrammetry, search and rescue, you have no idea how much they have changed the day-to-day operations of police and fire departments.

One of the first times thermal imaging from drones made international headlines was during the Notre-Dame cathedral fire in Paris, and how the cameras helped firefighters prioritize the hottest burn zones and extinguish them first.

The Thermal Imaging Advantage

A thermal camera reads heat signatures, not visible light. A hotspot shows up as a bright spot on the thermal image, which means crews can identify exactly where the fire is concentrated without climbing into an unstable attic to look around with a handheld thermal camera.

Chief Leggett explained the trade-off plainly: the alternative was sending people up to the third floor with handheld thermal imaging equipment to hunt through debris for hotspots. In a building where the attic just collapsed, that is not a calculated risk. That is a way to lose firefighters.

The Matrice 300 RTK spotted the hotspots from above, captured thermal images, and relayed the information to ground crews in real time. The crews knew where to focus water and where the fire was most active. No one had to climb into a collapsing structure to find that information with their own eyes and hands.

Chief Leggett said the drones improved both safety and efficiency. The safety part is obvious. Efficiency means crews do not waste time spraying water at areas that are already cool or guessing where the fire actually is.

They spray where the thermal imaging shows the heat. The fire gets extinguished faster. The building does not burn longer than necessary. The effort is concentrated instead of scattered.

The Operational Reality

The Monroe County Sheriff’s Office maintains three FAA-licensed remote pilots specifically because emergencies do not wait for scheduling. The call came in. The fire was active. The building was already compromised. There was no time to debate whether thermal imaging from the air was worth trying.

A certified pilot with the Matrice 300 RTK made the call. The drone launched. The thermal imaging started. The hotspots got spotted. The firefighters stayed safer as a result.

That is the only test that actually matters. Not whether drones look good in a promotional video. Whether they save lives when the building is on fire.

The Matrice 300 RTK can also use a LIDAR sensor to create three-dimensional models of structures and scenes. For fire departments, that capability means they can map a building before entering it, reconstruct what happened after the fire, and document the scene for investigation.

At the Clarkson fire, the thermal imaging was the immediate need. But the same platform gives first responders a complete toolkit for crisis response, scene documentation, and evidence gathering.

Drones for search and rescue and emergency response are becoming more indispensable every day. Here in Quito, they were invaluable during the landslide in La Gasca years ago. It is not just their ability to see what our eyes cannot see. It is the ability to send a machine into danger instead of sending a person. That changes everything about how first responders operate.

DroneXL’s Take

This is what the drone conversation should focus on. Not whether the technology exists, but whether it actually works when the stakes are highest.

The Clarkson fire was a real situation with real consequences. Thirty people lost their homes. Four were injured. The building became a total loss. But firefighters came home safe because they had information they could not get any other way.

That information came from a DJI Matrice 300 RTK in the hands of an FAA-licensed remote pilot who knew exactly how to use it. And that makes the whole point of professional drone programs concrete instead of theoretical.

Photo credit: Brockport Fire, DJI.