He wasn’t told not to, either!

First and most importantly Mr Frawley holds an “Amateur Extra” license from the FCC. That license class VERY CLEARLY doesn’t allow the license holder to transmit on 151.145 MHz. A person literally has to pass a proctored exam proving that they know this and on that part of the exam there are no trick questions.

Second and equally critical to your comment the fire operations section chief left the scene of the fire, drove to the airstrip and told Frawley to cease operations on the frequency. He got personally and directly told to STFU and obey the law, taking a section chief away from an active firezone.

The guy isn’t some n00b; he’s been licensed for a long time and well knew that what he was doing wasn’t allowed.

Looking at the guys profile page and the article it seems clear that he did this because there were two radio repeaters under threat from the fire, one Amateur VHF and the other his own business band repeater. He had a personal financial interest in trying to get firefighting efforts redirected to protect his property.

Everyone in the Amateur community knows that the FCC will rain breaks on you for doing stuff like this so as an Amateur myself I have very limited sympathy for the predicament that this idiot put himself in.