[Fot] Fire storms

[David W. Riddle]

My Dad (retired Army Aviator) works at Camp Pendleton and my Uncle 
Larry (retired first career as an Air Force C-141 Crew Chief) 
recently retired for the second time from Scripps Institute of 
Oceanography as their Climatologist.  Here is a note that Larry just 
sent out to family about the status in San Diego.

Interesting note about the Fire "departments" stonewalling Military help.

My Cousin Joe is a Fire Fighter over there and a step brother here in 
AZ is a fire fighter - both with a local City and with the National 
Guard (scheduled to go to Iraq in the Spring)

----------------------------

Everyone appears to be OK here in San Diego.  So far, the fires do 
not appear to be threatening to either Don's apartment in the North 
Park area (I'm not sure of its exact geographic nomenclature) or our 
house here in Clairemont.  I am told that Lori (and Erin?) were 
successfully evacuated, with animals, to El Cajon yesterday.  We have 
not spoken with her directly.

We're not sure where Joe is right now, but CALFire usually has his 
crew stay on duty in Temecula to provide fire suppression there while 
other Temecula fire fighting assets (also known as Riverside County 
Fire Dept and California Fire (CALFire)) are sent out of town for 
mutual aid.  I don't know if this is his current status.  In any 
case, Temecula does not appear to be threatened at this time.

The governor has approved the use of military helicopters to assist 
in the fire suppression effort.  This is required by state 
law.  During the Cedars fire (four years ago), then Gov Gray Davis 
refused to let them assist.  However, the local fire agencies are 
still trying to limit their impact.  The military crews are ready to 
take off, but the local fire officials won't let them.  They say they 
can't fly without a local fire fighter on board as an observer to 
coordinate drops.  And they are "trying to locate" fire fighters for this role.

Of course, the National Guard, Marine Corps, and the Navy all insist 
the choppers already have an qualified observer on board.  They are 
called crew chiefs.  And they are trained to coordinate all kinds of 
air drops.  They do it all the time in training, in Iraq, and in 
Afghanistan.  Not good enough, according to the fire 
officials.  Speculation is that this has everything to do with union 
politics and little to do with reality.

All of the military's fire fighting C-130s (all National Guard, I 
believe) are on their way to Southern California.  They were in 
mission preplanning well before their use was authorized.  The 
general in charge of them (at the National Guard Bureau?) stated 
that, if authorization was not received by the time the were ready to 
take off, that he had already scheduled a "training flight" for them 
that would take them to SoCal.  Military can-do.

Most of the other federal fire fighting aircraft are either here or 
on their way.  The news says there are about 14 aircraft (fixed wing 
and rotor wing) currently making drops.

More later.

Larry
-------------------------------------