Dubai Civil Defence to Put Six Electric Shaheen 2 Drone Fire Vehicles Into Service in 2027

Major General Expert Ali Hassan Al Mutawa, the force's assistant commander-in-chief for firefighting and rescue, gave the details on the sidelines of the Dubai International Electric Vehicles Exhibition and Conference 2026, Al Bayan reported. He said the programme is designed for fires in towers and other places that are hard to reach from the ground.

Shaheen 2 is an upgraded version of Shaheen 1. Al Mutawa said the whole system is electric, including both the vehicle and the firefighting drone it carries. The main limit on using drones against fires has been battery life, he said, so Civil Defence built the system to charge spare batteries from the vehicle while crews are working, without returning to a station.

A single drone can fly for about 20 minutes and has a working range of 200 metres, according to Al Mutawa. Crews swap in a charged battery each time it lands, which he said can stretch firefighting operations to two hours.

The Shaheen vehicles are now part of the first response to fires on the outside facades of towers, he said. Civil Defence has used them at facade incidents since the system was launched and has measured their effect on response times and efficiency, though he did not give figures.

Shaheen 3 will move from the medium to the heavy class of fire vehicles and add more capabilities for tower and facade fires. Al Mutawa said he expects it to be the first of its kind in the world.

He also said Dubai Civil Defence has brought in a fully electric heavy fire engine, making Dubai one of the first three cities in the world to use that type of vehicle. He said it had been through field operation and evaluation and had performed the tasks required of it.

Al Mutawa did not give the cost of the Shaheen 2 fleet or the new heavy engine. Shaheen 3 is scheduled to be shown at GITEX 2027.