Cause of fires: Bureaucracy and Civil Servants
Pilot Dave Weldon told The Associated Press on Thursday that he saw state firefighting planes on a nearby airstrip as he approached the mountains at 110 mph. He called down for help because his dispatcher had relayed reports of smoke in the area, but got no response.
That was around 5:45 p.m. A few minutes later, he spotted smoke from the fire, then only about 50 yards on each side and not spreading.
As he steadied his helicopter against wind gusts, Weldon’s concern mounted. Just before landing, he called for backup, asking another county helicopter to speed to the scene with its 120-gallon water dump bucket. And he urged the dispatcher to contact state firefighters and renew his request for air tankers.
The problem was that under state safety guidelines, no flights are allowed to go up into waning daylight. On Saturday, the cutoff was 5:36 p.m., said Capt. Ron Serabia, the CDF official who coordinates the 12 tankers and 10 helicopters now battling the 272,000-acre blaze.
The sun set that day at 6:05 p.m.
The helicopter with the dump bucket flew within five miles of the fire, before state officials told it to turn back. The air tankers never took off. Weldon was told crews would attack the fire in the morning.
“We were basically just offering our assistance fighting their fire, and they turned it down,” said Weldon, who with his partner delivered the hunter to law enforcement officials, who cited him for setting an unauthorized fire. “I was frustrated about it, but I wasn’t surprised.”
Awful.
