Coal heaps are frequently self-burning by definite environmental conditions, therefore thermal activity monitoring of these localities is important. For this purpose, data from terrestrial measurement or thermal infrared images are used. Subsurface coal fires monitored by terrestrial measurement by contact thermometers are time-consuming and dangerous because of landslides. That is a reason why coal fires are mostly monitored by thermal infrared images through remote sensing, i.e.

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... e or airborne data, which is much more suitable for thermal activity monitoring. The satellite data do not have sufficient geometric resolution (60 -120m per pixel), aerial thermal data are accurate, but expensive. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV or better RPASremotely piloted aircraft systems) can be solutionthermal images obtained by RPAS have good geometric resolution and can be used for small areas only and our case project areas are not so big. From economic point of view, low cost technology is preferred. The article describes opportunities of low-cost thermal infrared data, the use of RPAS (mapping by Microkopter system) in thermal monitoring and photogrammetric tasks (coal heaps) such as low cost aerial thermal mapping. The problems of planning and data acquisition are illustrated by creating an orthophoto. Theoretical preparation of data acquisition deals with RPAS Microkopter mission planning and operation. The obtained data are processed by several sets of software specially developed for close range aerial photogrammetry. The outputs are orthophoto images, digital elevation models and thermal map. As a bonus, low-cost aerial methods with small thermal camera are shown.