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Los Angeles CNN — Just one rogue drone is all it takes to bring the aerial assault on a wildfire to a standstill. So in a fresh alliance, the Los Angeles County Fire Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Los Angeles field office are working together in a first-of-its-kind drone deterrent program to get them out of the sky. During a wildfire, firefighters often attack a blaze from the ground and from the sky – sending in fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters to drop water and fire retardant to impede a fire’s progress. If an unauthorized drone flies into an emergency response zone, all that effort must stop. “The main reason they have to avert those drones is we have no idea what the intention is of the operator,” said Capt. David Laub of the Los Angeles County Fire Department, who said they’ve had cases of drones buzzing just over firefighters’ heads, posing myriad hazards to its personnel and aircraft. Yet as they pause, the fire continues to rage. “It continues to burn. It continues to get bigger. It threatens people’s homes, property, the environment, infrastructure – all of it,” Laub said. With drones now affordable and readily available at big box stores, officials say unauthorized drones have really become a problem in Southern California – especially as human-induced climate change is spurring gigantic wildfires capable of scorching through thousands of acres of parched vegetation ripe for burning as the megadrought in the West drags on. People want to see what these massive fires look like up close, usually not realizing how disruptive their drone can be. But through this new partnership, the officials say offending drones are identified and located in about 30 seconds of taking to the air. “When the detection equipment finds the drone and identifies the operator’s location, we can very rapidly get that information to a ground intercept team who can then go make contact with that drone operator and essentially get them to stop flying that drone,” said James Peaco III, the weapons of mass destruction coordinator for the FBI’s Los Angeles field office. With a special sensor, the team can set up a boundary as large or as small as desired and get notified if a drone flies into that area, instantly obtaining precise details such as elevation, direction, speed as well as where the drone took off from and where the controller is currently standing. Teams are spread out around the incident, ready to spring into action if a troublesome drone is identified. They immediately set out to intercept the controller. “The first thing we do is order them to bring the drone back, explain to him that there’s a wildfire and flying that drone during a wildland fire is actually a federal felony,” Peaco said, adding that violators fall into three categories: clueless, careless and criminal – with the vast majority willing to comply immediately. The federal office focused on health impacts of climate crisis has no permanent staff or funding “If it’s just clueless or careless, we’ll either issue a citation or even just warn them off and tell them not to do it,” Peaco said. “If they’ve done something very egregious and really interrupted operations or they refuse to comply, then we have federal felony charges that we can apply to the situation.”