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Colorado Lawmakers Want To Make It a Felony To Fly a Drone Over a Wildfire (thedrive.com) 203

Posted by BeauHD from the safety-first dept.
Several Colorado lawmakers are trying to urge Congress to pass a bill that would make flying unmanned aerial vehicles over wildfires a felony, citing safety concerns. The Drive reports: On Wednesday, Senators Cory Gardner (R-Colorado), Michael Bennet (D-Colorado), and Representative Scott Tipton (R-Colorado) introduced the Securing Airspace For Emergency Responders Act, which would fine people for flying UAVs over wildfires without authorization, and potentially send them to jail for a year. "When an unauthorized drone flies over a wildfire, it poses a huge threat to aircraft working to suppress the fire and forces them to ground," said Tipton in a statement. Steve Hall, a spokesman for Colorado's office of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, staunchly echoed that sentiment, claiming that firefighters face enough of a challenge navigating smoky and turbulent conditions while piloting firefighting aircraft, that adding rogue drones to the mix would only increase danger and hamper their efforts. On top of that, Hall explained that once an unauthorized drone is observed during a wildfire, firefighters ground their planes. The Denver Post first reported the news (paywalled).
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Colorado Lawmakers Want To Make It a Felony To Fly a Drone Over a Wildfire More

Colorado Lawmakers Want To Make It a Felony To Fly a Drone Over a Wildfire

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  • This isn't hard (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    1) Police should shoot down the drone
    2) Then find the pilot
    3) Then the police should shoot the pilot

    If you're enough of an asshole to fly over wildfires and put others at risk, you deserve to be shot.

    • Wait, I thought the police were the hated enemy? Now you want them to do your bidding? Oh, I get it, you don't want police, but you want to be in charge of a police state. Got it.

  • Bad call (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    "On top of that, Hall explained that once an unauthorized drone is observed during a wildfire, firefighters ground their planes. " This is an extremely stupid overreaction, and the safety-of-flight authorities who made it should be sentenced to one week confinement without food.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Cederic ( 9623 )

      Why is this an overreaction? You think people undertaking highly dangerous manoeuvres in difficult situations should accept additional unnecessary risk of indeterminate extent?

      Perhaps you should write to the air safety authorities and let them know why they're wrong.

  • Laws are useful for punishing people after the act. In this case though, we want to prevent the act in the first place. Making it clear that this is dangerous behaviour will work in most cases, where the operator is simply not considering the potential dangers.

    Encouraging drone bloggers to make a big deal about this sort of thing would probably be a lot more effective.
    • And drones fly automatically. That is the whole point of a drone. They can fly for many kilometers to their home base, and would have to be followed in order to find somebody who programmed the drone to fly over the fire.

    • Encouraging drone bloggers to make a big deal about this sort of thing would probably be a lot more effective.

      That's important but you know as well as I do that there are too many self indulgent pricks who would just go do it anyway unless they can suffer actual consequences from their actions.

  • So give firefighting helicopters omnidirectional radio burst jammer, or a spoofer, or ultrasound emitters or any of the other anti-drone technology that doesn't require aiming.

    • So give firefighting helicopters omnidirectional radio burst jammer, or a spoofer, or ultrasound emitters or any of the other anti-drone technology that doesn't require aiming.

      Thank god helicopters don't use radio for communications. And that they do not have to coordinate with multiple aircraft servicing the same fire.

    • So give firefighting helicopters omnidirectional radio burst jammer, or a spoofer, or ultrasound emitters or any of the other anti-drone technology that doesn't require aiming.

      Really? Because people fighting fires don't have enough to do already? Now they are supposed to jam drones that they might not even see to keep safe from jackasses who are endangering lives and property for casual amusement?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Njovich ( 553857 )

      That's a great idea. Be sure to include frequencies that people may communicate over to call for help. That also solves the problem of having to help people and makes sure you can spend more time focusing on other problems.

    • Because drones falling from the sky is what firefighters really need when fighting a fire.

  • I wonder what the FAA thinks about this. They're the ones who control the airspace. Not the State of Colorado.

    About the only thing they could do is make it a felony to *take off* (e.g. use space that the state has jurisdiction over) somewhere near a fire.

    And really, all fires of any import get a TFR (Temporary Flight Restriction) within hours. Certainly as soon as it escalates out of local control. If you fly a drone (technically a small Unmanned Aerial Vehicle in the parlance) you are supposed to unde

    • I wonder what the FAA thinks about this. They're the ones who control the airspace. Not the State of Colorado.

      :facepalm:

      Perhaps you should actually read the summary this time. You'd notice that these people who represent Colorado in the federal government are proposing a federal law.

  • What if the drones are being used to monitor the progress and the direction of the fire in order to protect a home-owner's property.

    The truth is, they're treating a mere drone in the air as if it is a hostile terrorist attack. And to be frank, the risk is minimal. Forests are huge, and even if a drone is flying while a air tanker is dousing flames, the odds are very slim of the drone impacting the aircraft.

    It should be a misdemeanor. Impact should be a felony.

    • What if the drones are being used to monitor the progress and the direction of the fire in order to protect a home-owner's property.

      First, that's the point of having "unauthorized" in the law. If the drone has a legitimate reason to be there, it can get authorized.

      Second, your property is not more valuable than other people's property that gets destroyed because you grounded the firefighting aircraft just so you could have a look-see.

      Third, your drone grounding the firefighting aircraft is a fantastic way to harm that home-owner's property, since you are interfering with the ability to fight the fire.

      Fourth, this entire premise is idio

  • Witness the pointlessness of politicians at work. Wildfires are declared a TFR (Temporary Flight Restriction) area by the FAA. Flying in one without authorization is already a crime. Try making it stick though. Last summer during the Goodwin Fire here in Arizona, some asshat flew his Phantom around one of the fire observation towers. He was caught later and arrested but the Sheriff's Office was unable to determine for sure when he was flying because DJI has the stupid thing encrypted.

  • Ridiculous (Score:2, Troll)

    by mysidia ( 191772 )

    Private drones should be able to fly unmolested, even if there is a fire, this is a newsworthy/noteworthy, and there SHOULD be an allowed way to observe this aerially without creating a hazard; someone's theoretical issues with it an obstinance against change should not result in attempts to make laws criminalizing operation of drones --- possible collision with a drone is just a theoretical threat which should not draw any reaction other than maybe requiring some pilots to change their behavior to

  • it poses a huge threat to aircraft working to suppress the fire and forces them to ground," said Tipton in a statement.

    I'm sorry, I don't see this. How the hell? How the hell is a couple pounds of flying plastic going to pose a threat to an AIRCRAFT?

    Maybe I'm naive or not seeing it, or whatever else, but really, how the heck is that a threat to safety? What could a drone possibly do to an aircraft in terms of damage and causing the aircraft to abort it's mission or whatever? Is there some evidence of this actually occurring?

    I imagine the real story is:
    Aircraft Pilot: OH FUCK there's a spec of something flying around ne

    • How the hell is a couple pounds of flying plastic going to pose a threat to an AIRCRAFT?

      By flying into the propeller of course.
      Propellers spin at very high speeds and are quite fragile.

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