Monaro firefighters welcome call for drones to be banned from bushfire areas
Alexandra Beech
Monaro firefighters have welcomed a push to ban drones from flying too close to New South Wales Rural Fire Service aircraft.
The RFS has asked the Civil Aviation Safety Authority to give it the power to create three to five nautical mile exclusion zones to stop drones interfering with fire-fighting efforts.
Fred Nichols from the Monaro RFS said drones hadn’t been a problem in the region yet because there weren’t many of them here.
But he said with more landholders purchasing the technology to use on farms, the exclusion zones were a good idea.
“Obviously we can’t stop people and farmers buying these drones and using them for their special purposes,” Mr Nichols said.
“But we would hope that during fires … they would keep them on the ground.”
Mr Nichols said drones that got in the way could cause an RFS helicopter to crash.
“If they’re jet helicopters they may suck them into the air intakes,” he said.
“If you happen to get a drone go in there it’ll cut out the motor and probably the helicopter would come down straight away.
“And other than just running into the rotors of the helicopter and running into the tail which steers the helicopter.”
CASA estimates there are tens of thousands of recreational drones in use around the country.
In Australia, drones can’t be flown within 30 metres of people, in built-up areas or above about 120 metres.
