San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
AIR ATTACK KEY TO FIGHTING VALLEY FIRE, BUT AT A PRICE
Up to 22 aircraft used, some costing thousands an hour to operate
Aerial firefighting has come a long way since the 1930s, when pilots in Ford Tri-motors kicked water-filled beer kegs out the open doors of their planes and crossed their fingers.
Witness the coordinated attack from the sky that went on for a week against the Valley fire southeast of Alpine.
As many as 22 aircraft — from a lumbering 747 to darting helicopters — have been deployed daily in a tricky ballet. From sunrise to sunset, they dropped hundreds of thousands of gallons of chemical retardant and water to help slow the flames while crews on the ground protected houses and cut and bulldozed a containment perimeter.
At least 30 homes and almost two dozen other structures were lost, but fire officials said it could have been worse without an aerial approach that’s become commonplace in San Diego County: Go early, and go hard. “It used to be that a fire had to get pretty big before you’d see the large tankers show up,” said Cal Fire Capt. Thomas Shoots, a 17-year veteran. “Now we understand the difference it can make if we start using all the resources right away. It buys us time to get the other pieces in place to put out the fire.”
That approach worked three years ago on the Lilac fire near Bonsall, which started next to Interstate 15 and consumed more than 4,100 acres and destroyed 105 homes in less than a day. A massive assault by tankers, fixed-wing planes and helicopters helped halt its advance. Two days later, it was 100 percent contained.
The Valley fire, which started Sept. 5 in Japatul Valley in 100-degree weather, chewed through 10,000 acres in two days, added another 7,000, and then got stopped in its smoky tracks by crews in the air and on the ground. They were aided by cooler weather and lighter-than-predicted Santa Ana winds.
Thursday afternoon, a U.S. Forest Service official, Mike Milkovich, called it “nothing short of amazing” that the fire had not done more damage.
County Supervisor Dianne Jacob, who represents the area where the fire burned, said, “We got lucky on this one.”
Sometimes you can buy your own luck, though, and local agencies have invested hundreds of mil
of dollars in fire prevention and suppression since the county was hit by deadly and destructive wildfires in 2003 and 2007.
Money for more fire stations and firefighters. Money for communications systems and brush management.
And money for aircraft.
Adored, but costly
Converted airliners dropping bright-red loads of retardant slurry on forest fires have become an iconic image of the West under siege this summer.
People in East County stood outside last week to watch the aerial attacks on the Valley fire and posted cellphone video on social media platforms. A large Erickson Air Crane leased by San Diego Gas & Electric, called Skymaverick, has its own Twitter account, with followers who post thankful comments and heart emojis.
The sources of all that adulation aren’t cheap.
A new helicopter, like the Sikorsky Firehawk the city of San Diego’s Fire-rescue Department unveiled last December, costs almost $20 million. It’s housed with two other firefighting helicopters in a hangar at Montgomery Field in Kearny Mesa that cost $13.7 million.
Cal Fire, which is in charge of the Valley blaze, uses Vietnam-era UH-1H Super Hueys that were discarded by the military, but they still cost millions to retrofit, maintain and operate.
The agency augmented its own fleet on the Valley fire with others, including a halfdozen Navy and Marine helicopters and two under contract by SDG&E: Skymaverick and a Sikorsky Blackhawk. The utility company spends about $10 million annually on the copters.
During the Valley fire, up to 14 helicopters have been in use every day, scooping up water from nearby lakes and reservoirs and dumping it on the flames — more than 400,000 gallons in all. As the week went on and firefighters got more of the blaze under control, the copters were used to target flare-ups inside the containment line.
Up to eight tankers were deployed daily, a mix of Cal Fire’s S-2s, which are converted Navy anti-submarine planes, and converted DC-10 and 747 airliners that cost thousands of dollars per hour to operate. The airliners are stationed at the former Mcclellan Air Force Base near Sacramento.
The tankers dumped retardant out ahead of the fire in amounts ranging from 1,200 gallons per load (the S-2s) to 18,500 gallons per load (the 747). Shoots said more than 600,000 gallons of retardant were used through Wednesday. Retardant costs around $3 per gallon.
All the expenses add up, especially with California experiencing longer and more ferocious fire seasons. The five largest fires in the state’s recorded history (since 1932) have occurred in the past three years.
In a 2015 report, the U.S. Forest Service said climate change has brought fire seasons that are now on average 78 days longer than they were in 1970. It said the agency spent more than 50 percent of its budget on wildfires, up from 16 percent in 1995.
By 2025, the report said, “two out of every three dollars the Forest Service gets from Congress as part of its appropriated budget will be spent on fire programs.”
Fatal crashes
The surge in fires is also taking a toll on the aerial crews.
Since early July, six people have died in crashes in California, Oregon, Arizona, Nevada, and Spain, three in helicopters and three in tankers, according to a tally kept by Bill Gabbert, a forlions mer firefighter who manages a website called Fire Aviation.
“We’re killing too many pilots,” he said in a phone interview.
With investigations ongoing, it’s too soon to say what caused the accidents, or if there are common threads. Gabbert suspects pilot fatigue may be a factor.
“With so many fires, there are more aircraft working them,” Gabbert said. “And the more flight hours there are, the more opportunities there are for crashes.”
Firefighting in general is dangerous work. A study by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identified 298 wildland firefighter fatalities from 2000 to 2013, an average of 21 per year.
Of those, 78 deaths (26.2 percent) were aviation-related.
That’s prompted some observers to question the advisability of massive air attacks. DC-10S dropping bright-red loads of retardant on a fire make for riveting TV footage and let everyone feel that something is being done to conquer the flames, but at what cost?
Fire agencies openly acknowledge that aerial firefighting never puts out a large blaze by itself. Its effectiveness is hampered by winds that blow loads off course and smoke that limits visibility. If crews on the ground aren’t close enough to move in after a load is dropped, flames can jump the chemical containment line.
“The public gets excited when they see the tankers and helicopters doing their thing, and that’s understandable,” Shoots, the Cal Fire captain, said. “We get excited, too. But you have to have the resources on the ground, cutting line and putting out the fire.
“The aircraft are just one tool in the toolbox.”
john.wilkens@sduniontribune.com