The All-Purpose Wildfire Thread

The amount of fallen branches/trees on the ground is amazing. So how are we supposed to clear this 'brush' out? This is an impossible task and when a fire comes through, which it will, it will have plenty of fuel to burn hot and fast. The idea that we can manage this stuff is bullsh#t.

PS The President should be horsewhipped for all his horseshit tweets!

Even goats would probably not eat manzanita or grease wood in a chaparral

environment. And if they could they would just hasten desertification.

The most worked up member from this table said he lived in Paradise and I should wear a kevlar vest if I ever needed to enter his property.

Brandon, come down to Mojave where you can see scores of used B747s and DC10s lined up. They are beyond their service life as far as airlines are concerned but they are still flightworthy. They can be had for pennies on the dollar and turned into tankers for a few million, or about the price of a home in Malibu. I see no reason, other than Congressional stoopidity on both sides of the aisle, why we can’t have 40 of them sitting at, say, Travis Air Force Base in central California. When the fire started near Paradise 10 or 20 could have been on it within minutes and doused it. They could be on any fire in California within an hour. Furthermore, half the heavy lifters in the Air Force could be retrofitted with tanks. Wouldn’t it be nice if our war machine did something peaceful?

When the 2003 Cedar Fire ripped through San Diego County, it forever altered the wildland/urban interface (WUI) playing field. Not only did flames consume 280,000 acres (more than 100,000 in the first 24 hours), they also destroyed 2,800 homes and killed 15 people. The mutual aid system at the time was pushed beyond its limit. The severity of the disaster demanded pulling out all the stops.

Military Involvement in the Cedar Fire
While integration of the military into firefighting operations had been limited prior to 2003, CAL FIRE has successfully worked with the California National Guard (CNG) since the mid-1970s. The CNG program uses military helicopter managers (MHEMs) to keep crews safe and effective in the air.

During fire season, the CNG uses radios that are fully compatible with fire service radios. For decades now, the CNG has readily cooperated during incidents, and its relationship with CAL FIRE has served as a model for other military agencies to follow.

During the Cedar Fire, the U.S. Navy offered its H-3 helicopters to help quench the firestorm. Though an obvious potential asset, the Navy helos had no standardized firefighting training, and their radio connectivity was limited. So to avoid major communications and operations challenges, the Navy ships were integrated only in remote areas of the fire. This action ultimately laid the groundwork for future cooperation with the military and mission expansion.

New Protocol
Following the 2003 siege, firefighting agencies in Southern California tried to decide how best to integrate the military into the firefight. It seemed on paper to be a natural fit, but firefighting is, of course, not the military’s primary job, so joint efforts remained limited to the one Navy squadron that had helped during the Cedar Fire.

Renamed Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 85 (HSC-85) and armed with new H-60s, the North Island-based sailors had the helpful distinction of being a reserve unit. This made them a readily available resource, with limited deployments and consistent personnel.

To streamline the alert and activation of aircraft in the San Diego area, CAL FIRE, in partnership with the Navy, formalized a letter of agreement. Using the existing agreement between fire agencies and the CNG as a template, protocols established included an initial availability inquiry and a detailed alert and activation process, which included both aircraft and fire agency staffing.

The 2007 Firestorm
In the days prior to the 2007 outbreak in Southern California, predictive weather services led CAL FIRE to call on the Navy Reserves. HSC-85 declared it would be ready with one or two of its bucketed Seahawks.

Initially, the largest fire was the Harris Fire. Having already alerted the Navy Reserves, fire agencies made the official call to the Navy Region Southwest for activation. HSC-85 responded a second time with two H-60s. On board those helicopters were not only standard aircrews, but CAL FIRE MHEMs. Their primary responsibilities include monitoring fire behavior and tactics, as well as safety in the fire traffic area (FTA), and performing proper communications. By virtue of the existing agreement and associated training, the two H-60s were immediately ordered to respond to the Rancho Bernardo area for fire suppression.

Due to catastrophic fire conditions, the Navy called on another eight helicopters to assist in the fight. At this point, the Marines offered a fleet of their own, a mix of CH-53E Super Stallions and CH-46E Sea Knights based out of nearby Miramar and Camp Pendleton.

Southern California was 2 days into the siege when these assets were acquired, which presented a series of hurdles to overcome (and little time to do so):

Fire agencies had nowhere near enough MHEMs to staff all the aircraft;
There had been no training or prior coordination to integrate the Marines; and
Marine radios were unable to pick up critical fire frequencies.
To compensate for the lack of MHEMs, helicopters were allowed to travel in pairs, with the lead aircraft carrying the experienced fire captain. The military typically flies its helicopters in sets of two to four, with the lead making radio calls and tactical decisions for the flight. This enabled CAL FIRE to deliver twice the amount of water with half the agency staffing. Given the extenuating circumstances, this proved sufficient for Navy air crews that regularly fought fire on their own installations and had been cooperating with CAL FIRE for the previous 4 years.

Many of the Marine Corps air crews, however, had never even carried a fire bucket. To ensure safety, each Marine helicopter tagged along with a CNG ship of a similar size; CH-46s followed behind CH-60s and CH-53s followed behind CH-47s. This allowed the aircraft to use appropriately-sized dip sites and compensated for the lack of MHEMs. More importantly, it provided radio connectivity via the CNG’s radio compatibility.

There are several problems with this

Special caution should be taken when operating in wind conditions of 20 knots (24mph)
and above, or when the gust spread exceeds10 knots (12mph). Tactical aerial
operations requiring flight below 1000 feet AGL shall be continuously evaluated when
winds exceed 30 knots (35mph), particularly over ridgelines and/or vertical terrain, or the
gust spread exceeds 15 mph. Low level flight operations will be immediately suspended
in an area where Moderate (or greater) Turbulence is reported by a participating aircraft.
It is the responsibility of the ATGS, pilots, and other responsible persons to
constantly assess the risks versus benefits associated with operating in highwind
and turbulent conditions.