Drone by Drone is providing preventative drone surveillance services during Bilbao's Semana Grande (#AsteNagusia2026), conducting UAS flights for both Civil Protection/Firefighters and the Bilbao City Council's Municipal Police.
We divide our work into two distinct functionalities:
- Fire prevention during the fireworks displays from Etxebarria Park and crowd control in highly congested areas.
- Security in the various festival areas and on the Arenal beach.
Using UAS, or unmanned aerial vehicles equipped with thermal imaging and visible spectrum (RGB) cameras, we obtain aerial data in the form of radiometric photographs and videos before, during, and after the fireworks displays.
Live viewing of technical recordings at the advanced command post allows Civil Protection and Bilbao Firefighters to detect any small fires that may occur, whether in the vegetation and trees of Etxebarria Park in Bilbao or on the rooftops of houses on Esperanza Street and Viuda de Epalza Street.
With the precise information captured by our drones, the aforementioned services are able to quickly locate and extinguish any fires.
From an expert perspective, the recorded material can be analyzed to assess potential fires that went undetected initially and to determine their true origin later, as it includes data from before and after the fireworks display.
From a security standpoint, we conduct flights at concerts in Europa Park and Arenal.
This year, with the massive ETS (En tol Sarmiento) concert (attended by approximately 27,000 people) in Parque de Europa, our drones proved invaluable for crowd control.
In the El Arenal festival area and the txosnas (temporary bars), our unmanned aerial vehicles can capture every detail, thanks to their thermal imaging cameras and powerful zoom capabilities. The images, transmitted in real time to the Municipal Police Command and Control Center in Miribilla, are carefully reviewed by officers to guide our actions aimed at minimizing theft, assaults of all kinds, street vending, fights, or any other situation that could pose a risk to those enjoying the festivities.
Drone operations in these circumstances are demanding both regulatoryly and technically. Therefore, due to the inherent risks, operations are conducted with two redundant drones, both equipped with thermal imaging cameras for analyzing any incidents that may occur.
Some of our work was featured in a report on the ETB2 program 'Euskadi Quédate'. You can watch it at the following link:
https://youtu.be/-e2pfAWsrx8
