Our View: A wildfire is no place for a drone
There was the drone in June that stopped firefighters from dropping fire retardant on a huge wildfire in San Bernardino County. There was the drone in July that delayed air tankers for precious minutes. And then, just last week, there were the five drones that hampered firefighters to the point that a wildfire jumped Interstate 15, sending people running for their lives.
California’s firefighters have had enough. And so have we.
It is irresponsible and dangerous to send a drone into a working wildfire just to shoot video for you to post on YouTube. But as the market for consumer-grade drones – small, remote-controlled vehicles with cameras – explodes, that’s exactly what’s happening.
Drones can take down a helicopter if the collision is just right. That risks firefighters’ lives and complicates efforts to control fast-moving flames during this historic drought. Monday, Sen. Ted Gaines, R-Roseville, and Assemblyman Mike Gatto, D-Los Angeles, aimed two bills at short-circuiting this problem.
Senate Bill 167 would expand upon state law, which already forbids people from interfering with firefighters on the job. Instead of facing a $1,000 fine, violators would have to pay up to $5,000. Senate Bill 168 would free firefighters and police from liability for destroying a drone during an emergency situation.
How firefighters would take down a drone is unclear. It might be even harder to pinpoint the blame for having flown into a fire zone.
People can fly drones from hundreds or even thousands of feet away, so finding the operators is problematic. Fire officials have discussed blasting them down with water, and Gatto wants to electronically “jam” them, but the first would waste water and the second isn’t technologically feasible for most drones at the moment, though U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Burbank, is pushing for “geo-fencing” technology to make them easier to disable in restricted areas.
The real problem with drones isn’t so much inadequate penalties as it is ignorance of existing laws. The market has grown so much and so fast that many consumers have no clue where they can and cannot fly. The Federal Aviation Administration sets the rules, but until recently hasn’t done a very good job educating consumers about the nature of those rules.
Many operators, for example, might not know the FAA bans drones above 400 feet, near airports and around temporarily restricted areas, such as the no-fly zones the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection regularly sets up around wildfires.
But that’s about as much slack as we’re willing to cut drone pilots. It doesn’t take a working knowledge of rulebook or a pilot’s license to know you shouldn’t be playing with your toys while emergency personnel are doing dangerous and potentially life-saving work. We should have no patience for anyone who gets in the way of that.
It’s easy to get fired up about inappropriate use of drones. We want to believe the best way to get people to dock them is education. But when common sense fails, authorities should have the means to get them out of the sky. If it takes new the rules proposed by Gaines and Gatto, then they should be passed.
This story was originally published July 23, 2015 at 4:19 PM with the headline "Our View: A wildfire is no place for a drone."