AI-powered thermal drone finds lost hikers in Kosciuszko National Park within five hours
Fire and Rescue NSW has used a drone equipped with artificial intelligence and a thermal imaging camera to search for lost hikers for the first time. Two men in their 20s were reported missing on the evening of Tuesday, June 23, 2026, after they failed to return to an agreed meeting point on their route near Jindabyne. The drone located them within five hours, and the service called the operation the first of its kind.
AI-processed from Guardian; edited by Hamidun News
Fire and Rescue NSW has used a drone equipped with artificial intelligence and a thermal imaging camera to search for people for the first time. With its help, rescuers found two hikers lost in Kosciuszko National Park within five hours, The Guardian reports.
How the search unfolded
The two men, both in their 20s, were reported missing at 19:00 on Tuesday, June 23, 2026. They had left a hiking trail near the town of Jindabyne and failed to return to an agreed meeting point on time. Searchers deployed a drone fitted with a thermal imaging camera that can detect the red light from a mobile phone screen.
- The men were reported missing at 19:00 on Tuesday, June 23, 2026
- The hikers left the trail near Jindabyne in Kosciuszko National Park
- Fire and Rescue NSW led the search using an AI-powered drone with a thermal imaging camera
- The men were found and brought to safety within five hours of being reported missing
- The service called the operation first-of-its-kind
Why the thermal drone worked
Thermal drones have long been used in search and rescue operations. The camera picks up the temperature difference between a human body and its surroundings, even in darkness and dense forest, where a visual search from the air or the ground can take hours or days. Adding AI to such a drone speeds up the processing itself: instead of rescuers manually reviewing hours of footage, the system helps them pick out human-like silhouettes and signals such as light from a phone screen faster.
It was the combination of these two factors — thermal imaging and AI-based recognition — that let Fire and Rescue NSW teams cut the search time to five hours in terrain where searches for lost people often take considerably longer.
What it means
The success of this first-of-its-kind operation shows that AI-powered thermal drones could become a standard tool for search and rescue services in rugged terrain, significantly cutting the time currently spent searching for people manually.
Key Questions Answered
How the search unfolded?
The two men, both in their 20s, were reported missing at 19:00 on Tuesday, June 23, 2026. They had left a hiking trail near the town of Jindabyne and failed to return to an agreed meeting point on time. Searchers deployed a drone fitted with a thermal imaging camera that can detect the red light from a mobile phone screen. The men were reported missing at 19:00 on Tuesday, June 23, 2026 The hikers left the trail near Jindabyne in Kosciuszko National Park Fire and Rescue NSW led the search using an AI-powered drone with a thermal imaging camera The men were found and brought
Why the thermal drone worked?
Thermal drones have long been used in search and rescue operations. The camera picks up the temperature difference between a human body and its surroundings, even in darkness and dense forest, where a visual search from the air or the ground can take hours or days. Adding AI to such a drone speeds up the processing itself: instead of rescuers manually reviewing hours of footage, the system helps them pick out human-like silhouettes and signals such as light from a phone screen faster. It was the combination of these two factors — thermal imaging and AI-based recognition — t
What it means?
The success of this first-of-its-kind operation shows that AI-powered thermal drones could become a standard tool for search and rescue services in rugged terrain, significantly cutting the time currently spent searching for people manually.
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