WASHINGTON, Oct. 9 (UPI) -- A small electric-powered unmanned aerial vehicle from NASA is being tested for early detection of fires in a national wildlife refuge.

The testing of the UAV in the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, a 50,000-square-acre area on the Virginia-North Carolina border, is being conducted under a one-year agreement between NASA's Langley Research Center and the Department of the Interior's U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

"The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is evaluating the feasibility of airborne unmanned platforms and their ability to offer a safer and more cost-effective alternative for surveillance of potential areas of interest immediately following thunderstorm activity," said Great Dismal Swamp Refuge Manager Chris Lowie. "The agency hopes to see a significant decrease in cost to survey the Great Dismal Swamp, as well as a reduction in time to detect nascent fires, which could potentially save millions of dollars to the taxpayer in firefighting costs."

The idea of using a small UAV for fire detection in the swamp came from a NASA employee following a four-month fire in 2011.

The fire was caused by a lightning strike, which fire officials told him were the primary reason for most fires in wilderness areas.

"I learned most fires are caused by lightning strikes and the only way they can spot them is by hiring an aircraft to do an aerial survey of the huge swamp," said Mike Logan, who works at the Langley Research Center. "So I figured why not use a UAV as a fire detector?"

The UAV being used in the experiment will be equipped with an out-of-the-nose camera that can see rising smoke plumes. A downward-pointing infrared camera in the aircraft body will detect heat signatures to find hot spots.

Video from the aircraft will be viewed using a laptop at a mobile ground station.

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NASA, Dept. of Interior use drone for wildfire detection