SAN DIEGO (KGTV) – Not one but two brush fires had air support from San Diego Fire-Rescue be impacted by drones in the air near the firefight. Thursday brought a brush fire for crews to knock down with the Gilman fire in La Jolla.
"The scene was chaotic. There's a lot of residents that live right there in those complexes right below where the fire started,” Battalion Chief Oscar Rodriguez of San Diego Fire-Rescue said. "A scary situation for a lot of people. But we did reassure them that we were going to do our best to make sure their properties were going to be safe."
Rodriguez was at the Gilman fire. Along with directing crews and pointing out concerning areas, he had to deal with something else in the air.
"Well yesterday, I spotted it,” Rodriguez said.
What he spotted was a drone.
"SDPD did a great job yesterday. We were able to identify the operator of that drone. We were able to bring it down with little disruption to the air support,” Rodriguez said.
It may be captivating and compelling to use a drone to get a bird's eye view of a fire and the devastation it's caused. But, San Diego Fire Rescue said these drone can cause a big problem for their firefighting effort and they need to be on the ground."
"They will restrict the flying of our aircraft,” Rodriguez said. "Unfortunately, when we do have to ground the aircraft, you know, it is a critical piece to us being able to mitigate those fires. So if they're not in the air, the fires can grow much larger.'
Wednesday in Rancho Bernardo, the same thing happened.
Here's San Diego Fire-Rescue Assistant Chief Dan Eddy spoke on the worst-case scenario with drones in the air while they're trying to attack the fire from the air.
"The wrong hit on that is going to kill everyone on that helicopter. It's not just going to hurt the helicopter or let us land. I have personnel that are in that you can be responsible,” Eddy said.
