Sunday, November 22, 2020

Drone grounds helicopters working Cameron Peak Fire


Larimer County, Colorado -- A drone illegally flying over the Cameron Peak Fire area grounded helicopters that were dropping water in the Pingree Park area as part of the firefighting effort on Saturday, November 21st.

Firefighters continue to work on the last pieces of containment for the 208,913-acre fire that has been burning since August 13th and is considered 92% contained. Crews worked by hand, with heavy equipment and with the help of aircraft dropping loads of water on areas that are still hot in the fire perimeter.

Helicopters dropped about 20 loads of water on Saturday before “a drone was discovered to be flying over the fire area,” according to a Sunday morning briefing on the fire. Aircraft cannot safely work with drones in the area, so the choppers were grounded for the rest of Saturday.

Drones are not allowed over the fire area, and fire officials on Sunday urged people to not fly drones in that area because it affects their ability to fight the fire.

Also, fire managers reported that traffic has been spotted on roads that are still closed in the fire area, creating safety issues for both firefighters and the public. They asked people to respect the closures in place, which are listed at nocoalert.org.

“Please stay safe and help us stay safe,” fire officials said in a written briefing on Sunday morning.

Crews on Sunday saw sunny and windy weather with gust expected to reach as high as 60mph overnight on Sunday and continue into Monday. Winds were expected to calm down Monday with clouds that are predicted to move over the fire with a chance of precipitation on Monday night.

1 comment:

  1. All emergency responder aircraft like firefighters and law enforcement should be federally funded to be equipped to knock out the sUAS by frequency zapper. This is not the first time firefighting ops have been grounded from some reckless or ignorant imbecile. Another option is to have more resources to trace these sUASs to their owners/operators (yeah they are not "drones" they are small unmanned aircraft systems as defined by the FAA and NASA). Start catching these offenders, whether intentional or ignorant of the law, and throw the collective books at them to the maximum punishable by law. Start making examples of offenders and the problem will go away for the most part (not entirely, there are always going to be criminals and idiots...often one and the same).

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