Drones and wildfires don't mix
- Thread starter Jafo
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PatR
Premium Pilot
If that was the case we would not have NFZ’s built into the software. It’s unfortunate but there are still quite a few people that think rules don’t apply to them or that they will be able to get away with doing anything they want to do. Where wild and forest fires are concerned the various civil agencies are making it a point to run down violators for prosecution. There’s a whole lot of civil and criminal penalty money to be collected from violators once they are found, and they make good public examples for the news media.
California appears to be pretty successful in locating violators.
California appears to be pretty successful in locating violators.
PatR
Premium Pilot
Wildfires have been an every year thing for a long time but they weren’t as newsworthy until the population went over the top and people put their homes in terrible locations because of crazy high land prices in the cities. Those that live in fire risk areas, and I’m one of those, need to spend a lot of their spring time keeping their land cleared.
Our environmental regulations also contribute heavily as they prevent clearing of underbrush to protect “wild life habitat”. The dead falls and dead grasses build up over years and burn like gasoline with the slightest ignition source, causing extremely rapid expansion of the burn. As our policies insist that all fires are extinguished the natural process of small, naturally occurring fires that would clear the under brush and aid new tree growth seed germination is prevented from happening. There’s also the issue of environmentalists preventing dead tree removal from our forests, and we have thousands of standing dead conifers that act like a stick of dynamite when they ignite. If they were not present fires would be much more manageable. Extreme care has to be exercised in dry areas as a spark from a lawn mower blade or horse shoe hitting a rock is all it takes to get a fire started. Idiots with campfires or tossing cigarettes butts out a car window, or unthinking people parking cars with hot exhaust over tall dry grass are also big problems.
Where I’m at we’ve had a couple close calls, one close enough where I got to watch a “firenado” race across the countryside only a couple miles away. Scary thing, and something I doubt anyone on foot could out run. As you mentioned, smoke from one of the larger fires at Yosemite has been quite an issue for the last couple weeks and if the wind shifts to blow that out the shift would bring smoke from another fire to make up for it.
There’s a ‘to big to fail’ game being played in the state capital right now to shift liability away from one of our largest utilities, PG&E, and put fire loss compensation on the backs of private insurance companies. A very large number of our most devastating fires have been caused by utility equipment and their liability is well into the billions of $$, and they don’t want to pay it. They lost in their attempt to raise utility rates to pay for their liability. If they manage to buy enough politicians to obtain a legislative victory the cost of homeowners insurance will sky rocket and a lot of areas will be denied insurance coverage. They’ve already got the governor on board. Only guessing but it’s possible insurance companies would spread rate increases across the rest of the country in the process.
All that was prolly a heck of a lot more that most cared to read but I thought it all might be helpful in understanding what’s happening here.
Our environmental regulations also contribute heavily as they prevent clearing of underbrush to protect “wild life habitat”. The dead falls and dead grasses build up over years and burn like gasoline with the slightest ignition source, causing extremely rapid expansion of the burn. As our policies insist that all fires are extinguished the natural process of small, naturally occurring fires that would clear the under brush and aid new tree growth seed germination is prevented from happening. There’s also the issue of environmentalists preventing dead tree removal from our forests, and we have thousands of standing dead conifers that act like a stick of dynamite when they ignite. If they were not present fires would be much more manageable. Extreme care has to be exercised in dry areas as a spark from a lawn mower blade or horse shoe hitting a rock is all it takes to get a fire started. Idiots with campfires or tossing cigarettes butts out a car window, or unthinking people parking cars with hot exhaust over tall dry grass are also big problems.
Where I’m at we’ve had a couple close calls, one close enough where I got to watch a “firenado” race across the countryside only a couple miles away. Scary thing, and something I doubt anyone on foot could out run. As you mentioned, smoke from one of the larger fires at Yosemite has been quite an issue for the last couple weeks and if the wind shifts to blow that out the shift would bring smoke from another fire to make up for it.
There’s a ‘to big to fail’ game being played in the state capital right now to shift liability away from one of our largest utilities, PG&E, and put fire loss compensation on the backs of private insurance companies. A very large number of our most devastating fires have been caused by utility equipment and their liability is well into the billions of $$, and they don’t want to pay it. They lost in their attempt to raise utility rates to pay for their liability. If they manage to buy enough politicians to obtain a legislative victory the cost of homeowners insurance will sky rocket and a lot of areas will be denied insurance coverage. They’ve already got the governor on board. Only guessing but it’s possible insurance companies would spread rate increases across the rest of the country in the process.
All that was prolly a heck of a lot more that most cared to read but I thought it all might be helpful in understanding what’s happening here.
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