The FDNY has a new high-tech tool to fight fires -- a drone. After six months of training and testing, the drone was used to fight an actual fire for the first time. Monday night. NY1's Lori Chung reports:

It's a bird's eye view of a four-alarm fire in the Bronx, thanks to video captured by the FDNY's newest piece of equipment - a drone flying high in the sky....

"The drone has high-definition cameras, it has infrared cameras, it's a tremendous tool," said Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro.

The eight-pound drone was deployed Monday night for the first time, when fire swept through the top floors of a six-story building in Crotona Park.The drone gave the commanding chief on the ground a clear view of exactly what his firefighters were up against on the roof.    

"It's a great picture, it really is a nice clear picture," said Assistant Deputy Chief Dan Donoghue, holding an iPad showing video from the drone. 

"When our members are on the roof and the chief is asking about conditions, he gets a verbal report, when he can actually see it and put it together with the words as to how conditions are: Is the fire becoming worse? Is the fire darkening down? He knows what his next move will be," Donoghue said.

Nigro says those decisions could mean the difference between life and death for firefighters and fire victims. It was deployed Monday night from a launch bad and was tethered to a control console. .

"It can fly up and down, but it can't fly around like drones that hobbyists use; it can move vertically, but very limited horizontal movement," Nigro said.

The FDNY spent six months testing the drone and practicing how to use it. The tests included switching to infrared images to pick up hot spots the eye cannot see.

Donoghue said it helped him put out Monday night's fire faster. The FDNY sayd this is only the beginning.

"Eventually do we go with a drone that's non-tethered, where we'd be able to get into areas where we cannot look for people? We maybe can fly a drone into a building where it's too dangerous for us to get into so we can start doing searches," Donoghue said. "This is stuff that we're going to look into"

The FDNY purchased two tethered drones for $85,000, and a non-tethered drone for about $8,000, using money from a federal grant.