Maybe this could work as a B2G route, like the guys making the firefighting helicopters selling to CalFire. But yeah, this smells like they are trying to find a way to privatize firefighting, which is not cool (pardon the pun)
I imagine that a firefighting startup would not actually replace the operations of fire departments, they would simply sell products to fire departments.
One example of that is Active911: https://www.active911.com/ They sell a product that allows notifications to be pushed through multiple communication methods, and allows coordination of first response.
Yeah, I think they want a 'greaser' company that will help smooth out governmental workings, FF deployments, and other stuff. Building drones is hardware, and hardware is bad at 'scaling.' Especially, since this kind of hardware is so 'critical' and probably need a lot of testing.
(Not affiliated, just heard of them in the Omega Tau podcast, which by the way I strongly recommend!)
It's not clear to me that they have any actual insight into how said drones might help, or how firefighting is done at the moment.
Improving fire code is more likely to have a bigger impact. This is basically all about money though.