SO-CAL Wildfires

Usairwys757 · Sat Oct 25, 2003 1:11 am

Tons of people have been evacuated, This is getting out of hand. Hopefully it will get better out there in SO-CAL

andersjt · Sat Oct 25, 2003 2:29 am

Skies over the city, all the way to the ocean, hazy with smoke.

Transit strike, supermarket strike - what a paradise this is Smile

fspilot747 · Sat Oct 25, 2003 11:10 am

Whew...looks like I left at the right time!

Nah...I'll look forward to being back in 4 years =)
Nothing quite like SoCal. (as cold as it gets here, I don't miss 100 degree weather...ever)

FSP

Aerialpingpong · Mon Oct 27, 2003 9:07 am

Hiya,

I'm pretty close to the action here. Where we live in Escondido is less than 3 miles away from the flames. It looks like it has died down a little bit, but it's pretty freaky, watching the flames move down the valley!

Qb001 · Mon Oct 27, 2003 9:20 am

I never understood why American authorities have never bought any one of these:

View Large View Medium
Click here for bigger photo!

Photo © Jean-Pierre Tabone Adami

SWA TPA · Mon Oct 27, 2003 9:35 am

My friend Trina's mother is about 3 miles from this mess. She has all her stuff that means something to her in milk crates in the car so she can run at a seconds notice. Very sad. Sad

I pray it does'nt come down to that for her and many other families. My heart goes out those families that it already had happened to. Crying

SWA TPA

Trvlr · Mon Oct 27, 2003 2:10 pm

Over 600 structures have been destroyed in San Diego. Several of my close friends' houses have burned down already. It's horrible.

Aaron G.

Guest · Mon Oct 27, 2003 2:50 pm

I spent all afternoon at the San Diego Gillespie airport trying to decide if we needed to evacuate our aircraft. The smoke was absolutely incredible and after the sun went down you could see the airport almost surrounded in flames. It was very sobering watching all of those flames burn over the ridges and knowing that there were homes there. I haven't seen anything like it except for the Yellowstone Park fire back in the 80's. It's really a mess here - ash is everywhere and the smoke is choking. By the way, I decided to keep the airplane in the hanger. There's no way I was going to fly through that stuff. If she burns, she burns.

Jetguy

Alessandro · Mon Oct 27, 2003 7:39 pm

Well, Qb001, read this link
http://www.aeronautics.ru/nws002/los-alamos-01.htm

[Edited 2003-10-27 11:42:25]

Tom in NO · Mon Oct 27, 2003 10:23 pm

I talked with my brother last night. I grew up in (and my dad and step-mom still live in) a house in Claremont at the base of a small mountain called Claraboya. One house two streets over from my dad burned down (caught fire from embers), and a house on the front ridge of Claraboya burned, as well. My dad had to evacuate at 3:30 AM Sunday to a friends house. Still haven't been able to talk to him directly.

Tom at MSY

Tom in NO · Tue Oct 28, 2003 1:33 am

Just got off the phone with my dad. They're without electricity, and the "Grand Prix" fire burned to within two rows of houses of them. The whole area evacuated, but now the fire's moved on, and they're back in the house cleaning the yard, etc. Numerous houses within sight of our house burned down, including at least one in the immediate subdivision. My dad said it was "terrifying" to see the fire and to hear and see all the fire trucks and police cars and radios on the next street over early Sunday morning.

For those with access http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-1notebook27oct27,1,7727537.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Tom at MSY

KYIPpilot · Tue Oct 28, 2003 1:40 am

I just saw a brief clip on TV showing a Mooney that crashed due to the smoke. Firefighters were hosing it down. The full story will be on the 12 PM news in 20 minutes

2912n · Tue Oct 28, 2003 3:27 am

Idiot in the Mooney had to go flying in the middle of the worst fires San Diego has seen in it's history...Crashed on the 163 and walked away from the crash...

QB001---The fire bombers in use here (mostly S-2's) are just as effective. Being a desert environment we don't have the lakes for an amphibious a/c to take water out of. Instead they land at a local airport, take on a load of fire retardent and then go drop. Just as effective. While I would love to see the seaplanes for photo ops, they just are not practical for our environment.

View Large View Medium
Click here for bigger photo!

Photo © Tony Zeljeznjak

BarfBag · Tue Oct 28, 2003 3:44 am

Just back from work (UTC area). They ordered the place shut because it stinks inside despite aircon running full. Its even worse outside, with the smell and all the ash and soot falling everywhere. I went driving around the winding roads of Poway/Julian Saturday evening just hours before the fire broke out. Its such a pity that beautiful place had to bear the brunt of the fire.

tbar220 · Tue Oct 28, 2003 10:31 am

This is terrible. I talked with my family at home, our house is in the foothills of the San Gabriel mountains, so luckily the nearest firest are maybe about 20 miles away. But its still a terrible, terrible mess for people out there. To give you an indication of how much of Southern California is burning:

Looks like a volcanic eruption:

This is nuts:

cancidas · Tue Oct 28, 2003 1:09 pm

hey i have an idea. how about spending some of that $87 billion on trying to prevent these from happenning again.

tbar220 · Tue Oct 28, 2003 1:23 pm

Hey, I have an idea. Maybe you put a little thought into what's causing these fires before spewing off statements.

- A very, very dry winter saw only five inches of precipitation, leading to very dry brush and vegetation.

- Temperatures in the last two weeks have consistently been in the 90's, which is well above normal for this time of year.

- The relative humidity of the area is very low, and Santa Ana winds help spur the fires.

- A lost hunter apparently started one of the fires in the San Diego area by starting a signal fire, which went out of control.

So maybe you should try to understand what's causing these terrible fires before saying something like that.

b757300 · Tue Oct 28, 2003 1:37 pm

Something else that needs to be done is regular thinning of the potential fuel sources and even burning some areas during the year when the weather precludes the fire from getting out of control. This is a very political topic as the environmentalists usually go ballistic when people suggest it and since California has moved so far to the left, it has embraced many of the environmentalists views.

From what I've been hearing on Fox, CNN, and various other news sources, is that the vast majority of fires are probably arson. It makes me wonder about something I read a while back.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-07-11-alqaeda-fire_x.htm

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,91735,00.html

DC10GUY · Tue Oct 28, 2003 1:49 pm

Ah Yes, this is a great opportunity to blame the environmentalists. Maybe the fires are because it hasn't rained ??? I was in Palm Springs yesterday and the smoke and ash was pretty scary to see. If the environment was left to the republicans we sure wouldn't have to worry about fires anymore... Their would be nothing to burn.

tbar220 · Tue Oct 28, 2003 2:22 pm

Why the f*** is anybody to blame for these fires?!? You have temperatures peaking in the triple digits, moisture levels are bone dry, and hurricane strength Santa Ana winds. Top it off with a total of five inches of rain last winter, the fire risk danger is extremely high. Fire's happen, its part of nature. Its been ten years since we've had fires of this magnitude in Southern California, why do people have to start playing the blame game?

tbar220 · Tue Oct 28, 2003 2:30 pm

This is so depressing, not only are people dying, homes being destroyed, but the beautiful mountains and forests are going to look like charcoal after this Sad

Alessandro · Tue Oct 28, 2003 10:08 pm

2912n, the Be-200 www.beriev.com can land on pretty rough sea outside the Californian coast...

2912n · Wed Oct 29, 2003 4:16 am

Alessandro,

Yes, they can land in rougher conditions than older seaplanes...but why go to the expense of buying/training/supporting something like that when the land based bombers work very well. The greater problem is that there just are not enough of any type of aircraft to deal with the fires. Here in San Diego for the first two days of the fire we had basically no air assets because they had gone north to fight the San Bernardino fires.

Something to remember with landing on the ocean is the problem California frequently has with a marine layer sitting over the ocean. We may have CAVU conditions over land, but as soon as you hit the beach there is a fog bank with almost 0/0 visibility, which would take the seaplane option away.

Another problem that we face locally is the resevoirs that we draw water from, and from which most amphibs would have to load from, are VERY VERY low and they are many hidden hazards just below the surface of the water. (Lots of trees that usually are deep under water, today those stumps stick up)

Again, they are not a bad idea, but there are other options that are just more practical to the local area.

wgw2707 · Wed Oct 29, 2003 7:13 am

I live in Moorpark, between Simi Valley and Camarillo, (near CMA, OXR, BUR et cetera). On Saturday night, I nearly had to evacuate, as a fire was ripping towards the city center at an incredible pace-it was two miles from my house. Mercifully, they stopped it. Yesterday and the day before, there were three fires blazing around town, and only locals were being allowed to enter the city.

The fire started over in Piru, spread across the nearby hills, jumped the freeway, and got into the Eastern area of town. The devastation is widespread and enormous. Fortunately relatively few homes were lost, so we have not had it as bad as in some places. The fires continue to burn, and there is still a lot of smoke in the air, and the sunlight shines into the house with an orange color. Just a minute ago several fire engines went by, sirens blazing.

It's been alarming...

-WGW2707

Sean-SAN- · Wed Oct 29, 2003 10:07 am

At 4pm the sky was already dark ... to give ya'll an idea of the smoke.

2912n · Wed Oct 29, 2003 10:36 am

This was the fire line about a mile from my home...

http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=1863745
http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=1863756

Tony

tbar220 · Wed Oct 29, 2003 1:46 pm

Damn good thing the lake is there, is your home and family safe?

2912n · Wed Oct 29, 2003 3:51 pm

Yes, thank you. The fire was stopped at the lake (and short of the Olympic training center...) It has since turned north and was threatening Jamul. Thankfully it is no longer much of a threat to us.

The big problem now is in the area of Julian.

Over 1100 homes are gone in San Diego County, over 200,000 acres burned, about 10% of the county is burning. Amazing. Like the last days of Pompeii.

Alessandro · Wed Oct 29, 2003 6:28 pm

2912n, sure rubbish in the water is a problem for all seaplanes, I guess that a
"landing area" at the water must be prepared and it´s much easier at a inland
calm water pond than the open ocean.

2912n · Thu Oct 30, 2003 3:08 am

A few years ago, before I got into aviation photos I had the opportunity to see the big Martin Mars bombers up in British Columbia. Amazing. But the amount of room they need to fly...

As I sit back and think of reasons not to use the amphib a/c...locally our reseviors are small and were created by flooding a river that went through a canyon. That means that each lake is surrounded by mountains. Makes for a tough flying environment. Not that it can't be done, but it exposes them to a greater risk...and again, why do that when you can land, hot load retardent and be back in the air in less than 5 minutes.

Having said that I would hope that our state and federal fire people would at least take a look at what is available. With the recent crahses of fire fighting a/c that are based on OLD air frames it would be nice to have some low hour aircraft without those issues. But in the end it comes down to $$$.

THree years ago we had a large fire in January that destroyed a number of homes. Air support would have helped stop it very quickly, but because of $$ issues we had no air assets in the area. SIgh.

tbar220 · Sat Nov 01, 2003 4:05 pm

What a blessing! An unseasonably cold weather system is moving through southern california and is expected to dump up to six inches of snow in the mountains, with the snow level dropping to 5000 ft. This break in the harsh weather is just what the firefighters need to finally get the upper hand on these fires. Rain is already falling in these areas, something that is desperately needed.

lehpron · Sat Nov 01, 2003 5:33 pm

Can anyone tell me the condition of Clairemont? It is in the middle of Miramar, Downtown, Kearny Mesa and Pacific Beach.

2912n · Sat Nov 01, 2003 6:32 pm

Clairemont is still a dump. Nothing burned. Just tweakers hanging out.

Qb001 · Sun Nov 02, 2003 11:42 pm

BTW, just learned that at the request of the State of California, the Province of Quebec has sent 4 CL-415 in Southern California to give a hand. This is for those who think these planes wouldn't be useful there...

Here's a picture of one of those CL-415, at work in California.

airplay · Mon Nov 03, 2003 12:06 am

Qb001,

The reason for resisting the "Canadian" solution is much more rooted in politics than practicality.

Many European countries with similar lack of lakes as California have purchased Canadair firefighting products. They just scoop from the ocean. Theres nothing wrong with the practice as the aircraft were build for that. They have extensive anti-corrosion provisons as well as fresh water wash tanks and maintenance procedures following salt water ops.

To say that land based aircraft are just as effective is ludicrous in my opinion.

Its a shame that we have 9 CL-215s sitting here doing nothing (our fire season is over for the year) when they can be down there firefighting.

The Canadair "Super-Scooper" debate has been raging in California for years. The aircraft has proven their worth countless times including a few missions in So-Cal. Here's an interesting article:

http://www.caltradereport.com/eWebPages/page-two-1067419736.html

And another:

http://www.firehogs.com/calif/calburoc.shtml

[Edited 2003-11-02 16:07:42]

Alessandro · Mon Nov 03, 2003 5:51 am

So the main fires are out, due to spell of rain and snow, add the effort by the
firefighters. So when will USofA stop relying on luck (snow and rain) and buy/lease some Mil26, Be200´s, Il-76? Never I guess, sigh...

2912n · Mon Nov 03, 2003 5:52 pm

Airplay, Alessandro...

I don't want to get into a pissing contest, but you need to relax a bit. There is no great conspiracy to not buy either Russian a/c (there are many reasons, both political and practical, for not buying them. But that is for another thread.) or the Canadian (I won't go into my reasoning again...)

I suggest you look at (online) articles from the San Diego Union over the past week. It is infuriating (as well as embarrasing) how government officials refused to allow certain assets to be used over petty political differences. (The U.S. Navy had aircraft and crews trained and ready to go but were not allowed to fly fire suppression because they did not have Forrest Service approved training and maintenance records...) A Sheriff's Dept helicopter was not allowed to fly in and drop a load of water on the early stages of the fire (when it probably could have been stopped in it's tracks) because they would not have been in compliance with their regulations. Stunning.
Military aircraft could not be called in because of a law passed in 1936 that mandates all civilian assets must be used before the military can be used to fight fires....

Please take the time to read them...these folks are so busy being stupid and now covering themselves, they don't have the time or ability to seriously consider other aircraft.

The fire fighting aircraft fleet needs serious updating. But much of that fleet is in the hands of private contractors, not the California Dept of Forestry or the Federal Dept of Agriculture...I agree that those airplanes you cite should be considered and, if appropriate, brought on board. But at the same time don't dig your heels in and insist that they are THE ANSWER that is THE BEST, cause it may not be.

Cheers, Tony

lehpron · Mon Nov 03, 2003 5:55 pm

Hey man, don't rail on Clairemont, I've lived there for 17yrs. I liked it there.

2912n · Tue Nov 04, 2003 3:11 am

Lephron,

Sorry, Clairemont still survives as a thriving San Diego Community, it's happy residents going about there daily lives with vim and vigor, shopping at Clairemont Square and cooking meth. Smile

Gotta pick on someone!!!!

North County · Tue Nov 04, 2003 5:01 am

2912n,

and don't forget the high concentration of Jack in the Box restaurants....

2912n · Tue Nov 04, 2003 8:42 am

Fine dining in Clairemont....Chez Jack's....

On a much more serious note...I attended a ceremony this morning at Gillespie Field in El Cajon as the body of Novato Fire Fighter Steven Rucker was brought out with a procession of fire trucks and police cars. His casket was loaded on a California National Guard C-130 and flown away to his home.

We can argue airplanes or poke fun at neighborhoods all day long here. But we should all take a moment to think of the people who put their lives on the line, and sometimes give their lives, so that others may live.

Tony

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