As a firefighter, I have seen fires being put out by unmannned firefighting machines (essentially a remote controlled tank with a nozzle mounted). To be honest they aren't yet a replacement for firefighters however they definitely help with industrial fires. Of course there is a lot of skepticism among the older firefighters.
S&R has incredible structural challenges outside of "the FAA won't approve my flights".<p>Drone operators in disaster zones need to comply with local authorities and get permission to fly. Instead, we have yahoo pilots blocking access of firefighting aircraft and complaining that they can't use their wide band communications equipment in a bandwidth constrained environment.