Czech Fire Rescue Service Pairs Radio Voice Communications with Real-Time Video Intelligence to Strengthen Wildfire Response

LiveU deployment via Smart Informatics adds live situational awareness alongside radio as the backbone of national emergency coordination.

The Fire Rescue Service of the Czech Republic has deployed LiveU video-over-bonded-IP technology to complement radio voice communications with real-time video intelligence across active emergency operations – a shift the rescue service credits directly with shortening wildfire response duration and improving command decisions when conditions on the ground are changing by the minute. 

Delivered through LiveU’s Czech partner Smart Informatics, the deployment integrates LU-REQON1™ and LU800 units with drone operators, thermal field cameras, and stationary PTZ cameras across incident sites. All signals are routed in real time to the Czech Republic’s National Operational Center, where they are managed centrally and redistributed simultaneously to on-site commanders, senior officers. For national disasters and other major incidents requiring public communication, the LiveU Matrix IP distribution platform enables the rescue service to push live video directly to public television, a capability already tested and used in the field. 

The capability was tested at scale during a major wildfire in Bohemian Switzerland National Park, where more than ten LiveU units were deployed simultaneously as part of a response involving 2,581 firefighters, 356 pieces of specialist equipment, including vehicles and drones, and up to eight helicopters using Bambi buckets for aerial firefighting. Drone operators with thermal cameras tracked fire spread from above, while stationary PTZ thermal cameras located hidden hotspots through the night. The fire was brought under control in ten days –and the rescue service credited real-time video intelligence as a direct factor in that outcome. 

The same area was devastated by a far larger fire in 2022 – an incident that exposed a critical operational gap and directly prompted the Fire Rescue Service to seek a technical solution. When they approached Smart Informatics with a requirement for high-quality video transmission from remote terrain with poor mobile network coverage, the response was to build something unlike anything previously deployed in Czech public safety and one that set a new benchmark for situational awareness across Europe.

Col. Jiří Studnička, Head of the Communications Department, General Directorate of the Fire Rescue Service of the Czech Republic said:

“Before LiveU, commanders in the operational center made decisions based only on voice communication over radio. Now they see exactly what we see, in real time, from every point of the incident. That change in situational awareness has made us faster, more precise, and more effective –and in a wildfire, every minute we save matters. The system is also remarkably simple to use under field conditions –our crews activate it in seconds with no technical setup at the scene. When you are responding to an emergency, you need technology that works without getting in the way”   

The LiveU units bond multiple connectivity types simultaneously –5G, LTE, WiFi, and Starlink satellite, where needed –maintaining continuous video transmission even when individual networks drop out or become congested in remote terrain –with no dependence on any single connection source. For a service operating across national parks, highland forests, and disaster zones, that resilience is the operational baseline. Live feeds flow from field units to the National Operational Center, back down to on-site commanders, and outward to senior officers who can monitor the situation on a mobile phone, tablet, or desktop –wherever they are.