(Yuba-Sutter, CA) – With fire departments from all over the Yuba-Sutter area engaged in fighting the Hotel Marysville fire on June 15th, there was also help from above: A drone.

The Appeal-Democrat reports the “unsung hero” that night was a drone using a heat-sensitive thermal camera, which was able to spot potential “hot spots” and even embers which were not visible from the ground. One example the paper reports, was a building in the immediate vicinity of the Hotel Marysville, where the drone “saw’ a burning ember causing a small fire on the roof. That flame was quickly extinguished and the building saved.

The “hero drone’ that night was piloted by Marysville Fire Department Fire Prevention Officer Andrew Hall, who “ who had earlier in the year graduated as a commercial Unmanned Aerial Vehicle pilot” according to the paper.