You know what would be really helpful in such a use case? Thermal imaging. Now I'll admit I know nothing about Thermal Imaging, but I imagine if it was possible to get a live high resolution thermal image of an area, you could identify hotspots quickly. Heck, even for SAR missions, being able to thermal image a large area and look for warm bodies may be very useful.

Of course I have no idea if this is feasible or not, but I assume someone here will correct me if I'm pipe-dreaming.