Korea grants exemptions allowing night and beyond-visual-line-of-sight drone flights for forest firefighting
Why It MattersRegulatory sandboxes like this let drone makers prove heavy-payload and night operations in live conditions, shortening the path to formal rules that open commercial markets for firefighting and other aerial work.
The Republic of Korea's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) has approved regulatory exemptions for 13 new mobility technologies, including aerial drones, allowing testing and validation activities that would otherwise face market-entry barriers under existing legal constraints. One exemption permits drones to be used for forest fire suppression at night and beyond the pilot's line of sight.
Conventional aircraft face operational restrictions at night because of poor visibility. Although drone use has been expanding, activities such as dropping or releasing objects, flying at night, flying beyond the line of sight and swarm operations have been strictly limited for safety reasons. MOLIT believes that deploying drones equipped with water-carrying payloads to nighttime fire sites, where helicopters cannot safely operate, will help curb the spread of fires.
Project operators may conduct field tests for up to four years: an initial two-year period, extendable by another two years. If the safety and effectiveness of the technologies are proven, relevant laws and regulations may be revised to enable full-scale commercial launch. Park Jun-hyung, Director General for Mobility and Automotive Affairs at MOLIT, said the ministry will prioritise safety management throughout the demonstration process and continue efforts to ensure that proven technologies are swiftly integrated into the formal regulatory framework.
