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Rocky Mountain Complex Incident Management Team Two will continue with aerial ignitions today on the north / northwest portion of the fire. A previous post explained the benefits of using a burnout strategy to create a wide barrier devoid of flammable material that will slow or stop the fire in the direction it's expected to move. 

UAS operators identify units where fire will be introduced. They then create grids within each unit which the UAS will fly in a back-and-forth pattern. The grid is outlined with a geofence which reinforces that the UAS stays within the predefined boundary.

As the UAS flies, it drops plastic spheres filled with potassium permanganate and injected with glycol. The combining of the glycol with chemicals creates heat that ignites the spheres when they are on the ground. Operators can release the spheres with a high degree of accuracy in terrain difficult to access on foot.