Officials aim to keep drones from wildfires
In the past three years, the number of drones that show up at the scene of wildfires has nearly doubled, a trend that has prompted federal agencies to remind people that drones are not allowed in areas where fire crews are deployed.
The warning comes months ahead of fire season, in the hope that this time, the public gets it. The problem is only one of many that must be worked out as more drones take to the skies, experts say.
The Associated Press recently reported that a $1.5 million Shadow drone got away from its handlers at Fort Huachuca. It was found stuck in a tree by a Colorado hiker more than a week later. The Washington Post reported that nuisance drones have injured people. Another stalked a woman, then crashed into
her car. One runaway drone wound up on the White House lawn.
Firefighters say a collision between a drone and a helicopter could be disastrous. Helicopter tail rotors are thin and vulnerable to any kind of disturbance, even small rocks or other debris. When a drone shows up, firefighters must ground their aircraft.
In spite of past warnings, the number of incidents nationwide has increased from 16 in 2014 to 30 in 2016, Forest Service spokesman Bob Blasi said, but “that doesn’t mean there weren’t more.” In Arizona, firefighters grounded aircraft at the Webber Fire and Wildcat Fire.
Drones halted work on a fire last June in the San Bernardino Mountains near Palm Springs. With the air crews grounded, the fire grew and firefighters were unable to complete work on a line meant to stop the advance of flames.
In response to similar incidents in Utah, lawmakers last year gave fire crews the authority to disable unauthorized drones and imposed stiff penalties and prison time on owners of a craft if it causes a firefighting plane or helicopter to crash. In signing the bill, Utah’s governor said drones in one instance raised the cost of fighting a fire by millions of dollars.
Arizona lawmakers also passed new drone legislation, making it a crime for a drone to interfere with law enforcement or emergency operations.
Most drones are operated by hobbyists, but soon, the number of drones in the skies is expected to rise as companies begin testing the use the remotely piloted craft to deliver items.
“There are millions of these drones in warehouses being programmed,” said David Swindell, director of the Center for Urban Innovation at Arizona State University.
Government has been slow to address how drones will affect privacy, safety, noise, and the quality of life in cities. Already, people have shot drones out of the sky, netted them or hurled rocks at them, Swindell said. Because shooting a firearm in city limits is illegal and firing at a drone destroys someone’s property, the courts have their work cut out for them, Swindell said, sorting out clashes between criminal and civil law, property rights and privacy rights, law and ethics.
“It’s a very murky area in the eyes of the law,” he said.
Consider downtown Chicago, where most any location — the street, an office — may be visible from countless nearby windows. Now consider Paradise Valley, with its one-story homes, privacy fences, pools and low population density. There is a different expectation of privacy in each place, said Troy Rule, an ASU professor of law.
For the past century, local governments have settled questions of privacy, zoning noise and other issues, Rule said. The federal government has been in charge of air space.
Paradise Valley passed an ordinance that would ban people from flying drones over private residences, but the Legislature then restricted cities and towns from enacting regulations separate from the state’s.
“Once there are regulatory policies in place, then we’ve got to figure how we’re going to police them,” Swindell said.
“This is not science fiction.”
Panagiotis Artemiadis, an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at ASU, is conducting experiments that will allow a human to control a swarm of robots, or drones, with the brain. The Department of Defense has funded the early research, but the technology has domestic applications, such as search and rescue operations, as well as information gathering during floods, wildfires or a nuclear accident.
“I would say five to 10 years from now, we could see it in practical applications,” Artemiadis said.
Perhaps firefighters will be able to use such a swarm to scout a wildfire. But it’s hard to imagine loading up drones with enough fire retardant to be effective. That’s going to take tankers and helicopters, which can’t fly if there are drones in the area.
“It’s just a matter of asking the public to understand that it is, in our viewpoint, a safety issue,” said Carrie Templin, a spokeswoman for Tonto National Forest. “We just want our pilots and our firefighters on the ground to be safe.”