Service · Oregon SAR
Available 24/7/365

Drone Search and Rescue Support

On-call thermal drone support for active SAR missions across Oregon — Lane County, the Coast Range, the Willamette Valley, and the Cascade foothills. Coordinated with county sheriffs, fire departments, and volunteer SAR teams. M30T thermal, IR illuminator, Part 107 night ops.

Active SAR Mission? Contact Now How We Work With SAR
What This Looks Like in Practice

Most search missions are won or lost in the first 12 hours.

Search and rescue work is mostly volunteer, mostly run by people with day jobs, and mostly fueled by a county sheriff's office budget that does not stretch to a dedicated thermal aviation asset. The window where a drone meaningfully changes the outcome is narrow — the first 12 hours after point-last-seen, when a person is still close to where they were when they got off-trail, when their core temperature still produces a heat signature thermal can resolve, and when the search grid is small enough for one or two aircraft to actually cover. Past that window the search becomes a much larger, much slower ground operation.

That is the moment Barnard HQ exists to support. A Part 107 commercial pilot in Eugene with a thermal-equipped Matrice 30T, a Mavic 3 Pro for visual follow-up, a Matrice 4TD as a hot spare, and a CZI IR3 IR illuminator for the dark side of dawn. 614+ logged flights, 148+ flight hours, and 9,164 miles of airspace operated — most of it in the same Coast Range, McKenzie corridor, and Cascade foothills where a Lane County search actually happens. Available 24/7/365 to county sheriff's offices, fire departments, and the volunteer SAR teams that show up when those agencies activate.

This is not a for-hire-only service. Most county SAR work is no-charge — gas money out, gas money back. The frame is: if a thermal drone makes a measurable difference and the agency is bearing the cost of the search anyway, we want to be in the air, not on a quote thread.

Use Cases

Where a thermal drone fits into a SAR operation.

Active

Missing Person / Lost Hiker

Hasty thermal sweep of the high-probability area within the first 12 hours. M30T with radiometric thermal at 80–120 m AGL covers a 40-acre search box in roughly one battery cycle, with a real-time observation feed back to incident command.

Active

Lost Child

Thermal sweep biased low and slow — small subjects, often in cover, cooler core temperatures than adults, and frequently silent. Field of view tightened, altitude dropped within Part 107 limits, full radiometric capture for post-flight review.

Active

Overdue Hunter / Hiker

Multi-leg search of a known travel corridor — trailheads, drainages, ridge lines, roadside pull-offs. Cross-coordinated with ground teams via radio, with the drone flying ahead of the cone where ground access is slow.

Reactive

Post-Disaster Initial Assessment

Storm damage, flooded zones, debris fields. Aerial recon for incident commanders before ground teams enter — confirming access routes, hazards, and likely rescue priorities.

Cold Trail

Cold-Trail Verification

The thermal window has closed but a witness or trail-camera reports a sighting that needs corroboration. Visual + 200x zoom on a corridor sweep, recorded for evidence handling.

Animal

Livestock / Pet Recovery

Off-property or off-trail animals — the Doberman recovery in Springfield linked below is the canonical example. Dawn thermal, IR illuminator, radio coordination with the family on the ground. Outside any active law-enforcement mission, this is quoted on a cost-basis.

Coordination

How we work with sheriffs, fire, and volunteer SAR.

Lane County Sheriff's Office runs the SAR coordination function for Lane County and runs the activation list. Surrounding counties — Linn, Benton, Marion, Douglas, Lincoln — each have their own activation patterns and most coordinate through their respective sheriff's offices. We are on phone and text with the SAR units we have worked with and we honor whatever activation chain that agency uses.

For a county or fire department that has not activated us before, the first call is usually informational — what we fly, what altitudes we plan, what the Part 107 envelope allows tonight, what airspace we need to clear. The actual mission call is the second call, and at that point the operational pace gets fast: brief, depart, rendezvous, on-scene check-in, fly the assigned grid, hand the footage over, depart. The drone is one element of the search plan — not the search plan.

For volunteer SAR teams: we already coordinate by radio in the field. Frequency, callsign, and coordinator name are confirmed at rendezvous. The pilot stays on the team net, calls thermal hits as they happen, and adjusts the search pattern as IC directs. We do not freelance. We do not hold the radio. We do not narrate.

What We Use

The aircraft on the SAR manifest.

DJI Matrice 30T

Primary SAR aircraft. Radiometric thermal, 200x zoom, IP55, 41-min flight time. The thermal sensor is the workhorse for the first 12-hour window.

DJI Mavic 3 Pro

Visual follow-up, 4/3" Hasselblad imaging for evidence-grade stills, lighter footprint for tighter terrain or quick repositions.

DJI Matrice 4TD

Hot spare and second-bird option for multi-leg searches. Same thermal/zoom payload class as the M30T with a faster swap on extended missions.

CZI IR3 IR Illuminator

Active-IR illumination payload for low-light visual when thermal contrast collapses. Used on the Springfield Doberman recovery linked below — the single capability that turned a stalled search into a found-alive.

Coverage

Where we fly.

Lane County · Linn County · Benton County · Douglas County · Coast Range · Willamette National Forest · McKenzie River corridor · Mt. Pisgah · Spencer Butte · Fall Creek · Oregon Coast · Cascade foothills · Eugene · Springfield · Cottage Grove · Corvallis · Albany

KEUG Class D and most controlled airspace coordination is routine. For BVLOS or non-standard operations, we work with the agency's existing waiver, with visual observers staged along the search route, or we fly shorter line-of-sight legs and reposition. We do not exceed the certificate. The supporting blog on what thermal imaging actually sees covers the operational reality of these flights honestly.

Mission Stories

Real searches, written up afterward.

The two cases below are documented on the blog rather than reproduced here so the operational detail stays in the long-form record where it belongs.

How Small Drone Operators Are Winning SAR in the PNW

Includes the Jonathan House mission — March 2025, Coast Range, 800 acres of search area, thermal sweeps coordinated through Lane County and covered by KLCC NPR. What agencies actually look for in a SAR drone partner, and the equipment reality that runs the mission.

What Thermal Imaging Actually Sees (and Misses)

Field guide from real Oregon missions. Where thermal is dramatic, where it collapses, and how to read a frame without over-claiming. Useful before any agency activates a thermal drone for the first time. Also the page that documents the Springfield Doberman recovery — dawn thermal, CZI IR3 illuminator, radio coordination with the family.

About the Operator

614+ flights, 148+ hours, 9,164 miles of airspace. Background, certifications, equipment, and the operational discipline that gets carried into every search. One pilot. One number to call. No vendor handoff.

Questions

FAQ

How does an agency or SAR team request drone support?

Direct phone or text — the contact form is fine for non-urgent coordination but for an active mission, call. Standard activation flow: incident commander calls, briefs the search area, last-known-point, and any thermal-relevant variables (suspected clothing, time on the ground, weather since point-last-seen). We confirm Part 107 airspace, BVLOS waivers if needed, and rendezvous coordinates. Typical wheels-up is 60–90 minutes from call, depending on drive time from Eugene.

Is this paid or volunteer work?

Both, depending on the requester. Lane County Sheriff's Office active missions and most volunteer SAR team callouts within Lane County are no-charge — gas money out, gas money back. Out-of-county sheriff's offices, paid private SAR contracts, and family-initiated searches outside of an active law-enforcement mission are quoted on a cost-basis. The frame is: if the county is bearing the search cost and a thermal drone makes a measurable difference in mission outcome, we want to be part of that, not a budget line item that delays activation.

What does thermal actually buy you on a search?

On a person who has been on the ground less than 12 hours, with skin or clothing exposed, in cool ambient air — thermal is dramatic. A bright human silhouette against a cold forest floor is unmissable from 100 m AGL. After 24 hours of cold rain, on a body shielded by deep cover, thermal contrast collapses and the search reverts to visual + IR-illuminator + grid pattern. The honest answer is in the linked field guide — it is not a magic wand, it is one tool in the stack, and reading thermal correctly is most of the skill.

How is evidence handled — chain of custody, recording, hand-off?

All flight footage (visual and thermal) is recorded onboard. After mission close, footage is hashed, documented with flight log and pilot identification, and handed to the requesting agency on encrypted media or via a private link. We do not retain mission footage on commercial cloud unless the requesting agency directs that storage. Crime-scene work specifically: the agency directs the chain — we follow their evidence-handling policy and document it.

What about night operations and BVLOS?

Night operations are routine under standard Part 107 with anti-collision strobes (3 SM visibility). BVLOS — beyond visual line of sight — is a different conversation. We coordinate with the agency's existing waiver if they hold one, or with visual observers staged along the search route, or in dense terrain we work shorter line-of-sight legs and reposition. We do not exceed our certificate. Pretending to is how operators get suspended — and is how SAR teams stop getting drone help, period.

Active SAR Mission?

For an active mission, call directly — the contact form will reach the same phone, but the call gets a faster confirm. For pre-activation coordination, agency MOUs, or a no-pressure scoping conversation about how a thermal drone might fit your team's mission set, the form is fine. Available 24/7/365.

Contact for Active Mission About the Operator