Early thoughts on the wildfires in So. CA

I have spent several hours over the last three days watching live video streams from CBS2/KCAL9 or MyFoxLA of the Station fire burning in and near the Angeles National Forest outside Los Angeles. I want to say from the outset that there is absolutely no way that my watching the live video streams (or you tube videos or any other video of wildfire fighting) is equal to the experiences of fighting these fires either on the ground or from the air. It does not and can not replace being there. But from my vantage point and given my age, this is the closest that I am going to come. I am profoundly moved by what I have watched. This is real stuff folks. This is not the type of video where I can sit on my couch eating popcorn watching a movie on cable or on DVD.

On Sunday, I started out by watching retardant drops by tankers and water drops by helos. Any excitement I felt by watching the aerial attack was replaced by horror as I saw the live feed of the news helo showing live footage of the accident site where two fine firefighters died. I will never forget those images and the words of the helo reporter. I hope I never do forgot. Two people died the other night. A few months ago I was watching live footage of a house being engulfed in flames. This was someone's house. I watched backburning operations this afternoon. And interspersed with these shots are shots of the fire itself, impressive flame heights of I don't know how high. And as I have watched this footage over the last three days, I understand that much of the fire is in extremely inaccessible terrain.

But I have also seen with my own eyes that this inaccessible terrain is sometimes inaccessible to the tankers that can help because the smoke makes it too dangerous to fly. For example on Sunday afternoon, I saw a P-3 make a drop on on side of Mt. Wilson (more on that in a later post) but there was smoke on the other side of the Mountain. One of tanker pilot friends told me yesterday as I was watching yet another video stream of the wildfires that a tanker pilot could see to approach the drop, would barely be able to see while making the drop, and has zero visibility leaving the drop because of the smoke. These conditions, he pointed out, made it unsafe for the tankers to fly.

I am only now beginning to absorb what I have seen, and I am not sure that my words can adequately convey the very profound impact that watching these live video streams has meant to me. I will share more reflections in a day or so.