Colorado Lawmakers Seek to Make Flying Drones Over Wildfires a Felony

http://www.thedrive.com/tech/21832/colorado-lawmakers-want-to-make-it-a-felony-to-fly-a-drone-over-a-wildfire

by mikece • 8 years ago

34 64 8 years ago

I have heard this is a danger as the drone could hit the rotors of a helicopter causing a crash.

They can also seriously damage low-flying fixed-wing tankers, which is why tankers must leave the area immediately if a drone is sighted.

waterphone4• 8 years ago

Just as with a bird strike, a drone can cause harm to any low flying firefighting aircraft. Sighting any drone in the airspace of a wildfire causes all air operations to be suspended until it is gone.

jobigoud• 8 years ago

There is only one known instance of a drone / helicopter collision. The drone exploded and the helicopter got scratches. Still dangerous though, don't do it.

gremlinsinc• 8 years ago

Would this apply if your drone was used to fight fires?

I wonder if some drone system that flies swarms of drones and drops nitrogen pellets that suck out oxygen could fight fires.

jbob2000• 8 years ago

If you manage to develop a drone swarm system that drops things, the last thing it will be used for is fighting fires.

I'm waiting for someone to develop drones that swarm like starlings (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eakKfY5aHmY). You could take down an entire battlegroup with a couple thousand suicide drones.

mschuster91• 8 years ago

I wonder if some drone system that flies swarms of drones and drops nitrogen pellets that suck out oxygen could fight fires.

You'd need way too much nitrogen for this. Basically it would heat up and change into gas form seconds after the pellet is anywhere near the fire. Fires, especially large ones, create massive amounts of hot air.

kej• 8 years ago

It's a question of authorization. If the fire department clears you to bring in your nitrogen swarm you'd be fine, but they want unauthorized drones out of the area so they don't interfere with other emergency operations.

BenjiWiebe2• 8 years ago

I am a volunteer firefighter. Our county uses a drone to watch fires, and let the firefighters know where the fire is spreading to and how fast.

dreamcompiler3• 8 years ago

I'm sure your drone is coordinated with Incident Command, which makes it not a threat to the aerial tankers.

s73v3r_3• 8 years ago

I would imagine drones being flown by the fire department would be exempted. However, that should not be taken to mean that a random person who modifies their drone should feel free to fly over the fire under the guise of "helping".

mkempe9• 8 years ago

In recent years, during wildfires in Colorado many homes have been saved by private firefighters because the owners had paid premiums to certain private insurance companies, which are determined to actively save assets not just pay for damages. Without these private efforts those houses would have been destroyed (we know this because the neighbors lost their homes and all their belongings when government officials told them to evacuate and they had no personal or private solution in place).

Do you recommend that the State stop homeowners from saving their houses or hiring people to save their houses if their actions involve the use of drones?

The government always resorts to banning or controlling new things. As a general rule, they're wrong; and their motivation is not the protection of your life, liberty, or property.

lifeisstillgood2• 8 years ago

I understand the concerns of firefighters and the politicians trying to defend them but this is a piecemeal patch on something that needs a coherent response. Of course flying your drone where a fire copter is operating is just making their lives harder - they don't need a law specifically about wildfires. They just need a button that says "this ten square miles it off limits. The transponders that every drone made is now fitted with will tell us who you are and the fine is in the post"

Drones are a real thing now. We can either require drones to have someone walking in front carrying a red flag, or we can introduce roads, traffic laws, police.

The FAA is probably a good place to start, but someday soon every drone needs to have a registered id number, and to start screaming if it goes out the globally agreed geofences that are delegated to local administrations.

Basically we can have the aero equivalent of Munich traffic or Mumbai traffic.

toomuchtodo2• 8 years ago

This isn’t a bad idea. Give access to firefighters to issue TFRs (temporary flight restrictions) with an interface to allow them to create the necessary polygons on a map and feed that into the FAAs flight plan system, while enabling drones to receive that information rapidly.

waterphone4• 8 years ago

This is already standard procedure, wildfires with air operations put temporary flight restrictions in place as a matter of course, which apply to drones as well. People still fly drones and shut down operations regularly.

zlynx• 8 years ago

It's a good idea, but making it a felony is not.

Is everything going to be a felony these days? Why? It attaches serious long term consequences, because a FELONY is widely regarded as a crime of direct, major harm against a person.

Flying a drone that actually causes a collision, sure, maybe that's a felony. Just getting caught in the area, because the pilot is curious and maybe never even /heard/ of this law? No, that's not a felony, in my opinion.

brian-armstrong• 8 years ago

If you aren’t up to date on the applicable laws, you have no business flying the drone.

Considering that drones have prevented planes from flying over with fire suppressant, this very much does meet the standard of causing harm.

GuiA• 8 years ago

Flying a drone legally should require a license, much like operating a ham radio does.

This would ensure that all drone operators have basic knowledge of what is expected of them (such as “don’t fly a drone over a wildfire”), and make it straightforward to fine/prosecute operators who are flying without a license.

If the majority of operators are responsible, educated, and respect the rules, it could even help relax some of the rules around drone operation in the long run.

mattsfrey• 8 years ago

A college kid that has a fake id to buy booze with is guilty of a felony. Just because something is a felony rarely means it will be prosecuted as such. I'm sure in any case that doesn't result in actual harm the charges would be heavily reduced or dropped. Making it a misdemeanor almost by virtue makes it pretty much a joke, and it's actually a very serious issue.

kolpa2• 8 years ago

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/felony.asp

"a misdemeanor is a lesser offense, punishable by imprisonment for up to a year."

Is a year in prison a "joke"?

A legal theory that says "I trust the authorities to ignore the law when I think they should" is a terrible theory.

tehwebguy• 8 years ago

On the contrary, making it a highly-punishable but rarely-punished crime opens the doors to massive and dangerous police & prosecution discretion.

arkades2• 8 years ago

I’m inclined to agree about our over-zealousness to punish, except...

It’s already a felony to impede emergency rescue efforts. And rightfully so: it places lives directly at risk. It’s intuitively illegal, and intuitively grave. “Curiousity” wouldn’t be an excuse for getting in the way of normal firefighters with an RC car, would it?

Why is impeding emergency services any less serious because it happened via drone?

koolba• 8 years ago

Why is impeding emergency services any less serious because it happened via drone?

I’d argue it’s more serious as there’s less skin in the game for the perpetrator.

kolpa2• 8 years ago

If I hear an explosion and I intentionally walk outside to investigate, unintentionally blocking the path of an emergency vehicle, have I committed a felony?

xkcd-sucks• 8 years ago

If the law is written simply to prohibit flying drones over wildfires, it will be used to prosecute people who fly drones over wildfires with no first responders present or nearby, and the definition of wildfire will grow to include common innocuous events.

oh_sigh2• 8 years ago

Ignorance of laws is no excuse, especially when it is laws relating to a expensive hobby activity that you have.

Would you support drunk driving laws that let drunk drivers who don't injure anybody off with a small ticket equivalent to a parking ticket, and only those who injure someone get their license revoked, jail time, etc?

mbrameld• 8 years ago

The only people allowed to use ignorance of the law as a positive defense for breaking it are the ones hired to enforce it, ironically.

lovich4• 8 years ago

On the other hand though, there is no one alive who knows all of the laws in the US. It is infeasible to be aware of everything and we likely break laws everyday without knowing it.

Would you support a system where the state can find a reason to arrest you whenever they feel like, and arbitrarily enforce it against people they don't like?

nitwit005• 8 years ago

It's generally a bad idea to suddenly slap a severe penalty on something previously legal, unless you plan to spend the effort to educate everyone about it. Tossing a bunch of people in jail that simply never learned of the law being changed doesn't benefit anyone.

There was huge efforts to education people about drunk driving, and we've ramped up the penalties over time.

matheusmoreira• 8 years ago

People who got caught driving while intoxicated probably shouldn't be allowed to drive again. Sending him to actual jail, though? Why? He was being imprudent but injured no one and caused no damages. There's no crime without victims.

I don't believe this "no one can claim ignorance of the law" argument either. It's not like the government goes out of its way to teach people the rules or their rationale. The government shouldn't be able to simply invent some random rule and start arresting people.

Buttons840• 8 years ago

Drones are not that expensive of a hobby. I just bought one on Amazon for 11 dollars. I'll just be sure to not fly it if I'm ever near a wildfire.

dreamcompiler3• 8 years ago

From TFA: "...could potentially become a federal crime"

"Felony" does not equal "Federal Crime" and state lawmakers do not have the power to make anything a federal crime.

Update: Above is correct, but article implied it is Colorado state lawmakers proposing this. In fact it is Colorado's federal congresspeople proposing it, and they are indeed proposing that it be a federal felony.

JustSomeNobody• 8 years ago

How about just imposing a very large fine instead? However, if it impedes rescue efforts, then make it a felony (as it already would be).

wyldfire• 8 years ago

How feasible/infeasible would it be to permit firefighting aviators to emit a regulatory alert beacon to any nearby drone and, if necessary, a regulatory override? Maybe it would trigger some kind of landing function? It's hard to imagine any kind of override function that doesn't introduce new hazards, though.

If drone manufacturers could work with global spectrum allocation and emergency response agencies, maybe they could avoid big legislative hammers.

opwieurposiu• 8 years ago

Private water bombers are paid a per-diem, regardless of whether they do any drops or not. Thus the safest way to make money is pretend you saw a drone. Aerial operations will shut down and you get your money with zero work and zero wear and tear on your aircraft.

The vast majority of "Drones" spotted from aircraft are not really drones, they are birds or plastic bags or a figment of the imagination.

Colorado Lawmakers Seek to Make Flying Drones Over Wildfires a Felony

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