Bump for Duncan Hunter, who is home trying to help his peeps from what I last read.
I just read this, he’s gotten some equipment from Canada. This wouldn’t be getting done if not for Hunter.
B.C.-based water bomber flies south to fight fires
Sandra McCulloch, Times Colonist
Published: Wednesday, October 24, 2007
A Martin Mars water bomber was expected to leave Nanoose at dawn and arrive in San Diego at 1 p.m. today, where it will help weary U.S. crews battle wildfires fanned by the Santa Ana winds.
The drought-fuelled wildfires have burned more than 750 homes and forced the evacuation of an additional 500,000 residents as they spread across 142,000 hectares of Southern California
The amphibious water bomber left its Sproat Lake base, outside Port Alberni, yesterday and spent the night at Nanoose. The water bomber’s owner, Wayne Coulson, flew with 10 employees of Coulson Group to San Diego last night and will meet with the aircraft as it arrives.
“We’re really grateful to have it here,” said Maurice Luque, San Diego Fire Department spokesman, yesterday.
The fires are not contained but winds had lessened somewhat yesterday, said Luque in a telephone interview. “It would have been so wonderful to have had the Mars here a day or so ago when the fire first broke out.
Luque added that resources, personnel and equipment have also arrived from northern California to help out.
The Martin Mars “is much larger and will add immensely to the capability and the potential to save structures down here,” he said.
The fires could be larger than the ones that devastated the San Diego region in 2003, said Luque. “We thought we saw the last of fires of that magnitude but we definitely have that here.”
In 2003, fires destroyed 2,406 homes and killed 16 people, including a firefighter.
The call for the water bomber’s assistance had been anticipated and plans were in place to dispatch it, said Coulson in an interview yesterday.
“It’s been wild, the last couple of days, trying to get organized here,” Coulson said.
“I’ve been down with San Diego fire department four times in the last five weeks working ... on placing the Mars down there for the Santa Anas.”
Coulson and his staff have worked out plans with the San Diego Fire Department and Congressman Duncan Hunter’s office, Coulson said. “We’re ahead of the game, we’ve flown into a bunch of the water reservoirs down there so we have a sense of where we’re going to go.”
A tractor-trailer used for specialized maintenance and a fuel truck left for San Diego on Monday.
Crews at the Sproat Lake base worked all night Monday into yesterday to prepare the aircraft for the job, said Coulson.
Since purchasing the two Martin Mars water bombers from TimberWest in April 2007, Coulson has used only one aircraft at a time and operations were downsized as a result.
A wet summer meant there were few wildfires breaking out along the coast and the water bomber available for a summer of work was mainly idle.
Crews test-flew the aircraft yesterday at Sproat Lake to make sure everything was working as it should.
This isn’t the first time a Coulson-owned aircraft has fought wildfires in southern California. A firefighting helicopter worked in the Los Angeles basin for five years. “It’s a natural fit for us,” said Coulson. “We know everybody, we know what we’re going into and everyone knows us. We’re pretty pleased.”