House passes Curtis bill to study drone trespassing on wildfire fighting efforts riponadvance.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from riponadvance.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Illegal drone flights near wildfires would be studied under John Curtisâs bill
House passes bill. Utah has seen private drone flights endanger fire crews.
(Leah Hogsten | Tribune file photo) An airplane drops fire retardant to fight a wildfire near Kaysville on Sept. 16, 2019. The U.S. House passed a bill by Rep. John Curtis seeking to quantify damage when such aircraft are grounded because of interferrence from private drones. | Updated: 2:53 a.m.
The U.S. House passed a bill by Utah Rep. John Curtis that seeks to quantify the damage done when people fly drones near wildfires, forcing aircraft that are actually fighting the flames to remain grounded.
Curtis gets bipartisan AIR safety bill passed in the US House Created: 10 December 2020
Drones flown in a wildfire suppression area create additional hazards to fire fighting personne; and increase risk to structures and lives on the ground. When people fly drones into the fire fighting area, fire manager must ground their own drones and helicopters until the air space is clear.
Representative John Curtis, the Deputy Republican Leader of the National Parks, Forest, and Public Lands Subcommittee spoke on the floor today on behalf of his bipartisan bill, H.R. 5040, the
Aerial Incursion Repercussion (AIR) Safety Act.
Introduced last year with Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA), Senator Cortez-Masto (D-NV), and Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT), the AIR Safety Act raises awareness on issues interfering with wildfire fighting by directing the Bureau of Land Management, USDA Forest Service, and Federal Aviation Administration to work with their State forestry partners to cond