DJI Ban Alert: Arizona Fire Chief Warns “Lives Will Be Lost” as December Deadline Looms

An Arizona fire chief warns that the looming DJI ban will cost lives, telling 12News: “In my opinion, lives are going to be lost because this air capability is going to be taken away.” With just 13 days until the December 23 deadline, small fire departments across America face an impossible choice: pay three times more for inferior equipment or lose critical aerial capabilities entirely.

Under the National Defense Authorization Act, if no federal agency completes a security audit of DJI by December 23, 2025, new DJI drones and replacement parts will be automatically barred from entering the United States. No audit has been scheduled. No agency has volunteered to conduct one. The ban is happening by bureaucratic default, not by security finding.

Casa Grande Fire Department Sounds the Alarm

At Regional Fire and Rescue in Casa Grande, Arizona, drones have become nearly as essential as fire trucks. Air Division Chief Luis Martinez told 12News that the department’s two DJI aircraft help firefighters detect hot spots, monitor structure fires, and respond to hazardous materials calls. They have even used drones to drop life jackets to people trapped in flood zones.

“Very useful tool. We couldn’t function without it, let me tell you that,” Martinez said.

But without access to new batteries or parts, Martinez said their program could be grounded within months.

“Batteries are a very perishable product. After about a year, they begin to lose charge. Sometimes they begin to deteriorate well before the year is up. So you have to replace battery. And with this ban, we won’t be able to get any new batteries, so that, in effect, will ground our drones.”

Larger departments, including Phoenix Fire, rely heavily on the technology as well.

The Cost Crisis: 3x Price, Less Capability

Martinez added that switching to U.S.-made drones is not realistic for most small departments.

“The drone we have right now we can replace for $10,000 with another drone of equal brand, but to replace it with a US manufacturer drone is about three times the cost, and they’re less capable.”

This aligns with what we have documented extensively. A leaked Department of Interior memo revealed that Blue sUAS drones approved by the Pentagon are 8 to 14 times more expensive than comparable DJI platforms.

The memo warned that forcing agencies to use only approved systems “reduced the sensor capacity of the Department of the Interior by 95%” and made it “almost impossible to carry out statutory management tasks.”

The concern is especially high in rural communities that depend on drones instead of helicopters for overhead support. For departments with tight budgets, tripling capital expenditure is simply not an option.

The Competitor Quoted as “Expert”

The 12News report quotes Cameron Chell, CEO of Draganfly, as an expert on the ban’s necessity.

“DJI has done an incredible job of scaling their business and producing a fantastic product at a low price,” Chell told the station. “It’s a hard bullet to swallow, but the departments are going to just have to pay more.”

What the report does not disclose: Draganfly is an NDAA-compliant drone manufacturer that directly profits from DJI restrictions. The Canadian company manufactures drones in the U.S. and has secured contracts with the U.S. Army, Cochise County Sheriff’s Office, and Mass General Brigham, positioning itself as an alternative to banned Chinese manufacturers.

Chell’s framing, that departments should “just pay more,” is not objective analysis. It is a competitor telling potential customers they have no choice but to buy his product instead.

This pattern is familiar. We have documented how Skydio’s lobbying expenditures increased from $10,000 in 2019 to $560,000 in 2023 while the company pursued state-level bans after federal efforts stalled. A June 2022 joint letter from six Blue sUAS manufacturers openly advocated for legislation that would eliminate their primary competitor and create a captive customer base.

DJI Welcomes Security Audit

In a letter to agency leaders in the federal government, DJI said it welcomes a security audit.

“DJI is confident that its products can withstand your strictest scrutiny. We are confident not only because we have nothing to hide, but because independent firms and other U.S. government agencies have repeatedly validated and confirmed that DJI’s products are secure,” wrote Adam Welsh, head of global policy for DJI.

As we reported, DJI sent letters to five agencies in March 2025 requesting initiation of the mandated review and received zero responses. The audit was never formally assigned to any specific agency in the NDAA bill text, and no agency has taken responsibility for conducting it.

If the ban takes effect later this month, current owners will still be able to fly their existing drones, but with no guarantee of replacement parts, batteries, or firmware updates.

DroneXL’s Take

Luis Martinez’s warning cuts through the policy noise: “Lives are going to be lost because this air capability is going to be taken away.” This is not hyperbole. This is a firefighter who uses drones to drop life jackets to flood victims telling Congress what will happen when his batteries die and he cannot replace them.

We have been tracking this December 23 deadline since the FCC granted itself retroactive ban powers in late October. The pattern is now undeniable: a company controlling 70-90% of the U.S. drone market faces elimination not because of proven security threats, but because no federal agency bothered to conduct the security review Congress mandated.

Meanwhile, competitors who cannot beat DJI on price, features, or reliability are being quoted as neutral experts while their lobbying dollars work overtime in Washington. GOP senators have started breaking with DJI hawks because they understand what Martinez understands: this is not about security. This is about protectionism dressed as patriotism.

Florida already lived through this experiment. As we documented in our investigation of Florida’s $200 million DJI ban disaster, the state grounded functional public safety drones, provided inadequate funding for inferior replacements, and never published the security analysis that supposedly justified the policy. Orlando Police testified that DJI had zero failures in five years while approved replacements failed five times in 18 months.

Senator Tom Wright, who originally sponsored legislation to expand drone use for first responders in Florida, became the ban’s most vocal opponent after seeing its consequences: “I hope to hell we don’t have anyone lose a life to this silly rule.”

The December 23 deadline is now 13 days away. Either a federal agency steps forward to conduct the mandated security review, Congress extends the timeline, or DJI will be banned through bureaucratic neglect rather than evidence-based security findings. Fire departments like Regional Fire and Rescue in Casa Grande will watch their capabilities erode month by month as batteries fail and parts run out.

And when lives are lost because a drone was not in the air, remember who told first responders they would “just have to pay more” while his company cashed in on the chaos.

What do you think about the DJI ban’s impact on first responders? Should firefighters be forced to triple their budgets for less capable equipment? Share your thoughts in the comments below.