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Background
Kansas City Fire Department’s Special Operations team has built a rapidly expanding Drone as First Responder (DFR) over the past 12-18 months alongside a growing calendar of major city events. The relationship with LiveU began with an urgent request to get live drone video to the NFL within days, and grew into recurring hands-on training on resilient field connectivity ahead of larger deployments including the FIFA World Cup 2026.
The challenge
In early 2026, Kansas City committed to running its DFR program as part of its core operating posture for the FIFA World Cup 2026 tournament, with only weeks to work through procurement and testing with its drone dock network before a June 9 go-live deadline.
Once live, the system needed to hold up across 20 days of Fan Fest and six matches including a quarterfinal and a knockout-round game, while also supporting federal counter-drone operations and the department’s normal call volume across a 318-square-mile district.
With crowds fluctuating from a few hundred to well over 90,000 people a day, the team’s central concern was keeping video connected when network conditions changed by the hour.
KCFD’s incident command center at the FIFA World Cup 2026.
Kansas City (MO) Fire Department
Using LiveU field units, KCFD kept video connected when network conditions changed by the hour.
Kansas City (MO) Fire Department
KCFD’s DFR in operation.
Kansas City (MO) Fire Department
KCFD’s DFR in operation.
Kansas City (MO) Fire Department
KCFD at Fire-Rescue International Conference
Kansas City (MO) Fire Department
KCFD’s mobile command center at the FIFA World Cup 2026.
Kansas City (MO) Fire Department
The solution
KCFD built resilient connectivity into its DFR playbook from the start, incorporating LiveU field units and on-site training from LiveU’s advisors into pilot training well ahead of the games. That preparation was tested directly when cellular congestion challenged connectivity during one of the tournament’s highest-profile matches, the on-site team diagnosed the risk in real time and engineered a stable link to increase resiliency by combining a LiveU unit with additional cellular and satellite paths. The same approach carried the team through its counter-drone support for federal partners, an emergency search that located a missing child in roughly 45 minutes, and a live special operations demonstration built and rehearsed in about 48 hours at the Fire-Rescue International Conference.
“Connectivity is everything. If you don’t have it, you don’t have anything. Moving data is moving information, and information is power.”
A program built at scale
KCFD’s DFR work sits inside a department built for far more than drone operations. It’s an all-hazards agency covering fire suppression, technical and water rescue, EMS, and hazmat response across Kansas City, Missouri. The department runs 35 fire stations organized into seven battalions, staffs roughly 1,200 uniformed firefighters, and responds to about 145,000 calls a year with a fleet that includes 34 pumpers, 12 trucks, three heavy-rescue units, one hazmat company and two aircraft rescue firefighting (ARF) locations — spanning everything from rural-urban interface to heavy industrial corridors to a dense, high-rise downtown core.
That scale is part of why KCFD’s DFR and counter-drone work has drawn attention well beyond Kansas City. During the FIFA World Cup 2026 games, the tactics the team developed in real-time were passed along to other host cities and federal partners working the same mission nationally. This turned KCFD’s playbook into an early reference point for what a coordinated DFR and counter-drone operating posture can look like at a major event.
“The things we were doing and the things we were implementing, in real-time, were being transmitted out by those agencies to the rest of the host cities. We did a fair amount of setting the stage for everybody.”
The secret to success
Ask KCFD’s Special Operations team what makes the program work and the answer isn’t any single piece of gear — it’s depth. Every mission the team runs looks different: a different crowd, a different environment, a different set of failure points. Tyler Grosser is direct about it: There is no one solution set that covers every scenario, so the team deliberately carries more tools and paths to connectivity to improvise under pressure.
That depth isn’t built in the moment. The team spent countless hours building out a flexible workflow beforehand through what the team treats as ongoing blue-sky training: rehearsing gear, workflows, and failure scenarios during calm conditions, long before a real incident puts them to the test. KCFD trains regularly with LiveU’s public safety team for exactly this reason.
“It’s the ability to think through things, pivot and have the depth of tools. There’s not one solution. It doesn’t exist.”
The results
KCFD’s Special Operations team now runs 12 drone docks and 29 drone platforms with 25 trained pilots, staffing the DFR mission around the clock with two operators on duty at all times. The program supported six FIFA World Cup 2026 matches and 20 days of Fan Fest. The actual matches proved to be the main event, but the KCFD did not rest on its laurels. This summer, KCFD hosted 15 agencies for the first DRONERESPONDERS USAR training conference and continues to train alongside LiveU as it builds out its next phase of operations, including ongoing airspace and counter-drone support for NFL games at Arrowhead Stadium.
Advice for other agencies
Asked what advice he’d give an agency working toward a DFR program, Captain Grosser didn’t point to a specific drone or piece of hardware. His answer was about fundamentals – the same fundamentals that carry an agency through both a planned event and the unplanned one that shows up without warning, which he sees as the scenario most agencies are building toward.
That mindset shapes how the team plans for problems it hasn’t seen yet. Rather than trying to perfect a fix for one scenario, KCFD trains its people to pivot, because no two incidents look the same.
To learn more about LiveU’s technology that powers DFR programs like the KCFD program, visit https://www.liveu.tv/solutions/public-safety.