Signal Staff Writer
bcharles@the-signal.com
Posted: Nov. 18, 2009 10:08 p.m.
County fire officials on Wednesday blasted the U.S. Forest Service’s decision not to scramble firefighting helicopters before the Station Fire raged out of control, scorched 250 square miles and killed two firefighters.
In a 41-page report released Wednesday, the Los Angeles County Fire Department questioned the Forest Service’s tactics, saying the federal agency needs to change its firefighting philosophy from “taking what the fire will give us” to “hitting the fire early and hard.”
However, the report said it wasn’t clear whether the earlier action would have stopped the devastating fire in its early stages.
The report comes days after the U.S. Forest Service released its own report defending the agency’s tactics in battling the wildfire that charred more than 160,000 acres of forest and destroyed more than 100 homes. The Forest Service report released on Friday blamed terrain for the Station Fire’s explosive growth.
U.S. Forest Service officials did not return calls from The Signal on Wednesday.
During the massive August wildfire, which burned several homes in Acton and elsewhere in northern Los Angeles County, steep terrain stopped hand crews from attacking the blaze that burned deep into the Angeles National Forest. The Forest Service’s policy grounded helicopters from flying at night and during early morning hours, said Los Angeles County Fire Chief Michael Freeman.
The head of the county Fire Department said while the conditions weren’t optimal, he wouldn’t have ruled out using helicopter drops to fight the blaze.
“Where air attack is most effective is where we can get hand crews on the ground,” he said. “That doesn’t mean we wouldn’t do drops.”
While fire officials stopped short of saying the Forest Service mismanaged firefighting efforts, county Supervisor Michael Antonovich was quick to attack the Forest Service for not allowing night operations to fight the blaze.
“The Los Angeles County Fire Department’s recommendations encouraging the Forest Service to allow nighttime and first-light air attacks would have prevented the Station Fire’s rapid growth and mitigated its catastrophic toll,” Antonovich said in an e-mail response to the department’s report.
The Station Fire threatened a wide swath of Antonovich’s district, which includes the Santa Clarita Valley.
Freeman said the intention of the report was not to lay blame at the Forest Service but to align the two departments’ “tactics and fire-prevention efforts.”
In the report, county fire officials said they tried to avoid what they called “Monday morning quarterbacking,” instead aiming to change the federal agency’s policy.
“Despite abundant speculation, the truth is that no one — no fire chief, no firefighter, resident or reporter — can provide definitive evidence that anything would have made a difference in the outcome,” the report said. “Still, we must look hard at every action. We must question and we must make changes where we can. We must challenge old paradigms and bring about new ones.”
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