Utah authorities likely will be among the first in the nation to be allowed to disable and crash drones for flying too close to wildfires after lawmakers approved legislation Wednesday.
The governor is expected to sign the measure in the coming days.
Lawmakers voted during a special session after at least one unmanned aircraft has plagued firefighters recently in the southern part of the state.
The bill would also impose harsher penalties on people caught flying the aircraft, with the maximum punishment of 15 years in prison and $15,000 fine if a drone causes a firefighting aircraft to crash.
Bill sponsor Sen. Evan Vickers, R-Cedar City, said that while the bill does allow firefighters or law enforcement to shoot down a drone, he doubts they'd do so because the unmanned aircraft fly so high and it would be difficult to do. Instead, fire officials or law enforcement officers are expected to use technology that jams signals to crash drones.