I love (not really) the 'apparently privately owned drones' bit, which based on the only descriptions of the objects in question do not point to privately owned drones. Of course, this article had no description. For all we know this drone was white, about the size of a Phantom but with flapping wings. There is clearly breathless hysteria among the firefighters mixed with the age-old problem of pilots' poor abilities to identify flying objects leading to Salem witch trials in the media ("there's the devil inside those drones!"). Placing yourself 500m from a wildfire in order to fly a drone isn't just lacking common sense, it is being reckless with your own life. It also should make you easy to spot for people fighting said wildfire. Alas, they could see a supposedly privately-owned drone but could not see the much larger operator who had to have been in the immediate vicinity of the fire. Things aren't adding up here.
