Drone grounds firefighting aircraft. Again.

You read about such things and go tut-tut, thinking what sort of fool would do this. And then tend to forget about it. Until; next time.

But this time, it was very close to home, so it is worth bringing it up again with some degree of seriousness.

Just down the road from where I live is the town of Dunsborough. It is one of the best holiday spots in WA, and definitely in my opinion has one of the two best bakeries (the other being on Rottnest Island).

Yesterday, a nasty bush fire caught on just out of the town centre. The local Coles store was in the “red” zone of the fire, so that’ll give you an idea of just how close to the main town area it was.

Firies were quickly on the scene as was a swag of water bombers. But guess what happened? Yup! Some dipstick sent up his or her drone to get a look-see from above the fire. Consequently, all other aircraft had to be grounded for the duration.

Now some folks in the various online drone forums make the comment of “what could a 250g drone do to a helicopter”, or “m-a-t-e – just send it”.

These people are fools and make life difficult for everyone else.

Thankfully, the firies managed to get this fire contained quite quickly, but next time this may not happen.

So please, PLEASE, if you are drone flyer, be responsible and stick to the rules and common sense.

If you are NOT aware of the rules, they are here.