Town and county fire service is all volunteer. We all however have to go through pro board accreditation (for classes) which is nationally recognized in the USA.
Check with your local department to see if they offer CPR and basic first aid courses. If your local FD (fire department) doesn’t offer any, neighboring town stations may.
Scheduled for Fire 1 (basic Fire academy) in 2026. Looking forward to developing basic fire fighting skills and strengthen my knowledge in this new volunteer undertaking I started in mid 2025.
As for tech skills in 2026, I’d love to develop a photogrammetry pipeline mixing shoulder mounted SLAM scanner, DSLR terrestrial photography, and aerial LiDAR data sets. I’m lucky to have access to these data sets, just gotta put the pieces together.
I’m already familiar with UAS (unmanned aerial systems) photogrammetry and mixing that with terrestrial photos for high detail models. Aerial Lidar and SLAM datasets are something new I’ve been working with over the past 6 months.
One anecdote I can provide - the department I volunteer for swapped to software based (see: mobile app) personnel calling because the county swapped to the system.
The software can quickly load box data (PDFs of hydrant locations and building details), as well as provide route mapping for individual at their location compared to call.
Additionally, every volunteer has a somewhat modern smartphone in my rural/suburban area. Pagers are not in huge demand anymore.
Laid off game dev from 2024 (3D art). Looked into how I could participate in industries and economy at the county level.
Became a survey tech for a survey firm that has been around for three generations.
I’m looking to enjoying a new career where there is no homework, small supportive team, and helps serve people and businesses that are part of the community I live in
I definitely need to re-approach the county level historical society with a more thorough “pitch” for generating clean and detailed 3D models from drone photography.
The website embed is easy, I’d use sketchfab as the content host and embed platform. So long as sketchfab doesn’t disappear this is the best solution for embedding that I can utilize within my skill set as a 3D artist
I’ll need to see if I can have an in person meeting with larger historical societies so I can demo the 3D models and explain its significance.
I’ve stressed I’m not trying to solicit this as paid work - framing it as a partnership that is beneficial to both parties could make headway however.
This has cross my mind multiple times. There are some beautiful residential properties overlooking some state parks. With clear 3 statue mile visibility into the park.
I’m not fond of solicitors entering my private property - I don’t feel confident knocking on doors asking for that type of permission.
That’s some incredible perseverance from you! In person is the right move though. Getting FaceTime in with groups or people who are part of the process does seem to make the best headway.
PA restricts drone take/off and landing to only 6 parks in the whole state.
So for example, Washington’s crossing state park with its 3.7thousand acres, restricts drone/take off and landing by state law.
I’ve politely reached out to the park, and being a federally licensed commercial pilot with insurance coverage doesn’t pry that jar open.
The airspace classification is the limit, so I can fly over as much as I want - problem is all surrounding property is privately owned and I need to maintain 3 statue miles of visual line of site.
^ All of the above makes it impossible to capture up close aerial imagery of colonial period houses and barns for photogrammetry.
Smaller single structure county owned properties only hand out photography permits if events are being held, or the photography/videography is associated with a production company.
I may need to expand my municipal and county outreach further away from the county I reside in. Which is a shame since there are some beautiful historically preserved farmlands and structures in my home county.
This is great feedback. I’m still at the content creation stage, aerial and terrestrial photogrammetry to produce 3D models. Hosted on sketchfab.
I really haven’t figured out a solution to host 3D models that isn’t tied to a web based private company. I.E sketchfab.
Curios if there could be an avenue of resin 3D prints of the 3D models. I always seem to loop back to “why does someone want/need this?” Which may in turn be the reason for state/county property owners refusing permission to access property.
The digital capture is indeed the easy part at the scale I’m working in - thanks again for this insight
I’ll have to look into regional historical societies. The county wide historical group has not been keen on allowing access to properties without a justified end goal other then “3D model”.
Which to be fair is a step I’ve still yet to figure out other then having models hosted on sketchfab.
I’m starting to visit in person farmer markets that exist on land with over 80+ year old histories and structures.
The personal educational avenue is another great option I haven’t considered. I’ll keep this in mind.
Here is a 3D model of a carriage house built in the late 1800s that I processed from drone photography. https://skfb.ly/oW8v7
This was from a public park so no permission was needed.
I’m a 3D artist that is currently encountering staunch resistance of generating 3D models from drone captured photogrammetry of historically protected sites in Pennsylvania, USA.
I’ve had resistance from the state and county level in pursuing take off and landing permission at historical sites. Communicating my intentions of digital historic preservation with photogrammetry has been a difficult “sell”.
I’m a licensed commercial remote pilot - however I need property owner permission to take off and land. Many sites are in state/county owned property in my area.
Check with your local department to see if they offer CPR and basic first aid courses. If your local FD (fire department) doesn’t offer any, neighboring town stations may.