The flying of unauthorized drones within firefighting areas is a federal crime punishable by up to 12 months in prison or a fine of up to US$75,000.
I wonder if that drone operator cares that someone might have died because of his actions.
I would be in favour of a kill-switch that emergency authorities could use to knock down all unauthorized drones in areas like that. It might be the only way to guard against this sort of idiocy.
That would require the drone complying with the kill-all switch. The enthusiast community is still very unhappy about being required to have the FAA Remote ID broadcast chip onboard, which also broadcasts the pilots location. Many still don't and they have gone as far as creating spoofing and fuzzing devices (that create dozens of ghost drones and pilots).
Yep, that's a problem, but it may have a silver lining: when the kill-switch kicks in, the remaining flyable drones would therefore be clearly assumable as non-innocents worthy of felony and/or misdemeanor charges, if the operators can be caught.
I would expect the kill-switched drones to also be non-compliant and face similar charges.
law abiDINg DRonE pILoTs