Since the infrared payloads for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) can operate under the bad weather conditions of cloud, rain, fog and haze day and night, they are widely used in disaster information acquisition and emergency mapping support. Many applications and practices of UAV infrared payloads in several relative fields are described. Their application status in emergency mapping support aspects such as monitoring and assessment of geological disasters, early warning and rescue of forest fires, monitoring of meteorological and hydrological disasters, emergency investigation of environment issues and search and rescue in bad environment is summarized. The existing technical issues and difficulties and their corresponding solutions are discussed. Finally, some suggestions are given for the development of UAV infrared payloads in automatic disaster recognition and detection.