Several Aircraft Took Flight on 1st Day of California's Fires, Contradicting
Earlier Reports
SACRAMENTO, California
Saturday, November 17, 2007 19:20 PST

Several aircraft were able to fly in strong winds on the first full day of
last month's Southern California firestorms, contradicting officials'
earlier claims that the weather had grounded virtually all aircraft,
according to documents released Saturday.

Twenty-eight of 52 aircraft the state was tracking for firefighting efforts
remained grounded that day, and high winds were not listed in the documents
as the reason.

The documents attempt to answer charges by federal lawmakers, military
officials and others that the state did not effectively marshal all its
available air resources as a series of blazes began roaring out of control,
eventually destroying more than 2,000 homes and killing at least 10 people.

An earlier investigation revealed that military helicopters sat grounded for
days, in part because of a shortage of state fire "spotters" who are
required to be on board military aircraft used for firefighting.

The documents obtained under the California Public Records Act answer some
questions while raising others. They also reveal a more detailed and at
times different version of events than previously provided by the state's
top fire and emergency officials.

For example, state fire officials last month said high winds had grounded
virtually all aircraft in the first two days after the flames broke out.
Therefore, they reasoned, it would not have mattered whether additional
state fire spotters had been available to ride in the military choppers.

The documents show that although pilots were hampered by strong winds, a
dozen air tankers and five helicopters flew more than 70 hours October 21,
the first full day of the firestorm. Those aircraft would have been flown
by pilots who, unlike military pilots, are trained specifically for fighting
wildland blazes and would not necessarily have required state fire spotters.

The papers also reveal that the number involved in the aerial attack was a
fraction of the tankers and helicopters available in the state during the
fires' opening days.

28 of 52 aircraft the state tracked for firefighting efforts remained
grounded. The total would include a combination of aircraft operated by the
state, U.S. Forest Service, the military and private contractors.

They remained on the runway not because of high winds, but because state
officials had not requested them or they were being kept in other parts of
the state in case fires broke out there, according to the documents.

Mike Padilla, aviation chief for the state Department of Forestry and Fire
Protection, said some of the aircraft not called in to fight the Southern
California blazes in the first days helped extinguish smaller fires that
popped up elsewhere in the state.

He also said the spreadsheets and other statistics released Saturday fail to
capture the heroic efforts by the pilots and crews who fought the fires,
which were being fed by Santa Ana wind gusts as high as 100 mph.

"We were making desperate attempts, and the wind was just incredible,"
Padilla said in a telephone interview. "I saw it blowing water right out of
the buckets. ... It's like trying to look back into the fog of war and see
how this aircraft or that aircraft was used. It's not easy."

The series of wildfires consumed 780 square miles and injured more than 100
firefighters.

Padilla said the documents, gathered to respond to the public records
request and other internal reviews of how military and civilian aircraft
were used, are providing lessons about deploying aircraft.

"It's something that we're realizing that we may have to do a better job in
tracking and utilizing individual aircraft in a large situation like this,"
he said.

On October 25, state and federal rules kept nearly two dozen military
helicopters, including those from the Marines, Navy and California National
Guard, grounded for at least a day after the fires broke out.

Having too few fire spotters was a large part of the problem. State rules
require that fire spotters, also called helicopter managers, from the state
fire department accompany all choppers to coordinate water or retardant
drops.

The state has determined it had enough spotters for the helicopters it knew
were available but had to scramble to find spotters for the Marine and some
of the Navy helicopters because it wasn't expecting them, Padilla said.

"When we found out how many military and Marine helicopters were available,
we put in orders and began trying to find qualified managers that weren't
already assigned," he said.

The state has only a limited number fire captains trained to direct water
and retardant drops from helicopters. When they're not performing those
duties, they're commanding crews on the ground.

In many cases, captains had to be located and pulled off fire lines to fly
with the military, Padilla said.

The state ultimately determined it wouldn't find enough captains to fill the
role and abandoned rules that each military helicopter have one. That
decision was made after flames had claimed almost all of the more than 2,000
homes destroyed.

State and federal lawmakers have criticized the lack of coordination between
the state and military to get aircraft up sooner.

Three years ago, a state firefighting panel said it should be a "high
priority" to find ways to quickly get military helicopters and planes
airborne during fast-moving wildfires.