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A neighbor of mine is a Navy Commander "Seahawk" pilot stationed at North Island (across San Diego Bay, the north end of Coronado where the carriers are based.)

They have 100 of these Navy-version blackhawks over there, and they are all trained for carrying heavy sling loads, (it's a routine job they do in the fleet, dropping cargo onto ships). He can't understand why there were never tasked with water bucket missions, and still have not been. A Seahawk can lift a water bucket the size of a van. It's a very easy and safe mission, he says. Fly to lake, descend to fill bucket, fly over fire, drop water. Repeat until out of fuel, refuel, continue.

There are 100 Navy Seahawk helos, sitting at North Island, ten minutes flying time from the fires. At least 75 of them are "flyable" today, immediately, if given the order.

What is the sense of that?

If this turns out to be the beginning of a new form of terrorism, then certainly we had better get the military involved where ever it can be. If the first fires were attacked by helicopters with water buckets the first hours they were reported, they might have been put out while they were still small.

Certainly, we need to evolve a new strategy for dealing with coordinated arson-terrorist started fires, a strategy involving the IMMEDIATE use of every available helicopter capable of lifting a water bucket.

What is the sense of having 100 Navy Seahawks sitting idle at North Island, fifteen miles from the fires??????

It's a very easy and safe mission, he says.

Having known folks who trained for that mission, it's not particularly easy or safe. External cargo missions over water are relatively easy and safe. Hauling external cargo over a wildfire, with visibility nil and extremely unpredictable air, is much more difficult, and the price tag of getting something wrong is a crash landing in the middle of a fire.

This is a training failure on the Navy's part--units based here in the Southwest should be 100% proficient in this from the get-go.

There's also a monetary angle (as there always is). Most of the firefighting aircraft are owned by private contractors.

They get more money for a big fire than for a little fire. So they have a perverse interest in generating large fires.

They have a lot of influence with the CDF (because they work for the governor). They argue that federal law requires that the state pay the military, and that it will cost a lot of money.

Will give the details that were given on KFI last night by the State Rep from Lakeside and the State Senator from that area. On Sunday afternoon Cong Hunter got in touch with General Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and he was told to have the head of CDF call him at his home or the Governor and they would get the military involved including the USAF planes out of Colorado.

Cong Hunter passed this info with phone number to the head of CDF who then told Hunter he would have to think about it. As we know nothing happened.

These two State legislators are now going after Davis and his Administration for their total ineptness and then yesterday Davis was going around SoCal inferring the President was taking his time to sign the emergency declaration when he had already signed it.

Took the moronic cable news channels a long time to finally say Pres Bush signed the declaration and took until late in the afternoon before we found out that Arnold had visited firefighters and his wife, Maria, had visited the SB Shelter.

Then we heard from Cong Dreier that Arnold would be on his way to D.C. today to meet with federal officials including the Vice President. None of that was reported on cable news.

Or maybe something more effective than either helo bucket carriers or the Bombardier Canadair CL-415 *water bombers* that LA has leased from the Canadians.