Steeper punishment for drone violators?

By Joshua Stewart

High winds, dry vegetation and steep terrains have always worried firefighters battling flames in the backcountry. Now they also have to worry about drones.

Hobbyists and aficionados have taken to flying small, unmanned aircraft with small cameras above wildfires in an attempt to capture dramatic aerial photos or video of an unfolding natural disaster. The footage is red meat for YouTube and Facebook, but firefighters and lawmakers are worried that these drones could get sucked into air tankers’ jet engines, collide with cockpits or get tangled in a helicopter’s rotor and cause a crash.

“For a lot of people, it’s a YouTube mission. My job, I want to get people to go home safely,” said Cal Fire Battalion Chief John Francois, head of the service’s aviation department.

Federal, state and local officials are pushing legislation that would impose steeper penalties on people convicted of using drones that interfere with firefighting efforts. On Tuesday, for example, the county Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to support such bills in Sacramento and Washington, and to make the issue a priority when lobbying state and federal lawmakers.

“Lives and properties are at stake here, and we don’t need looky-loos,” said Supervisor Bill Horn, the board member behind the resolution.

Nationwide, drones are a concern not only among firefighters, but also aviators and emergency-response crews in general.

Take this example from New York on Monday: Commercial aircraft spotted three drones flying near John F. Kennedy International Airport, putting pilots on high alert.

Francois said whenever a drone is spotted aloft near a wildfire, he has to order his fleet of tankers away from the blaze. There’s no way to communicate with the drone’s owner by radio, and Cal Fire can’t override control of the aircraft. Ground crews have to find the operator and ask the person to land the drone. If this search takes too long, Francois said, he has to ground his fleet.

“You’re causing people on the ground to have their lives jeopardized unnecessarily,” he said.

Horn said June’s Lake fire in San Bernardino County and July’s blaze in the Cajon Pass made clear to him the risk of drones, prompting him to propose the resolution. Aircraft in both fires were grounded after small, unmanned aircraft were seen nearby — giving the flames time to advance.

More than 31,300 acres burned in the Lake fire, while the Cajon Pass blaze destroyed 20 vehicles and damaged 10 that were stopped on Interstate 15.

Firefighters in Northern California also have been impeded by drones. The incidents included a July 2014 confrontation between a law-enforcement officer and a drone operator near the city of Plymouth.

And the run-ins are not an exclusively American phenomenon. On Aug. 1, crews in British Columbia, Canada, had to ground a firefighting helicopter after drones were spotted near a wildfire. In Australia, firefighters have reported similar problems while battling infernos in bush country.

In Sacramento, some lawmakers have introduced measures designed to punish drone operators who get in the way.

State Sen. Ted Gaines, R-El Dorado, and Assemblyman Mike Gatto, D-Glendale, wrote legislation that includes fines of $200 to $2,000 for people whose drones interfere with firefighters. The penalties rise for individuals who “knowingly, intentionally or recklessly” violate the policy. These serious offenders can be jailed for six months, fined $5,000 or both.

Gaines and Gatto also have announced that they intend to introduce a companion bill that offers immunity to emergency responders if they damage an unmanned aircraft while combating fires, evacuating patients or conducting search-and-rescue missions.

In the House of Representatives, a similar bill would likewise fine violators — the amount hasn’t been specified — or send them to prison for up to five years, or both.

For at least the past year, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has pressed the Federal Aviation Administration to quickly move ahead with regulations that would restrict unmanned aircraft operations. He has highlighted near-collisions between drones and standard aircraft near John F. Kennedy airport as evidence that the agency and others shouldn’t wait any longer to take action.

“It’s clear that commercial drone use has crossed over from unregulated to potentially deadly,” Schumer said in a statement released Nov. 23, three days before the Thanksgiving holiday, the busiest travel day of the year.

Federal agencies including the Department of the Interior, the Forest Service and the FAA are engrossed in a marketing campaign to discourage people from flying drones above wildfires.

“The FAA’s top priority is safety. If you endanger manned aircraft or people on the ground with an unmanned aircraft, you could be liable for a fine ranging from $1,000 to a maximum of $25,000,” FAA Administrator Michael Huerta said in a statement. “Know the rules before you fly. If you don’t, serious penalties could be coming your way for jeopardizing these important missions.”

Federal officials often place temporary flight restrictions around wildfires to designate airspace that’s open only to firefighting aircraft, at the exclusion of all other aircraft and vehicles — manned or unmanned. The zones vary between fires, but they often extend several thousand feet above the ground.

The FAA prohibits commercial use of unmanned aircraft without government permission, including flights for aerial photography, video and film and television production.

Experts encourage recreational users to follow safety guidelines that include flying the drone no higher than 400 feet, keeping the aircraft within line of sight, flying away from manned aircraft and, unless authorities are notified, staying at least 5 miles away from airports.

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