Reflections on CAL FIRE

I finished off my trip to the west coast of the USA by visiting family and friends in southern California for a long weekend, a trip I make every two or three years. I don't recall any moderate or large wildfires in the portion of the state where I visited last June.  I think, but am not certain, that there was not high fire danger or red flag warnings when I visited. Not so in 2014 when I spent a week in southern California on personal business. There were red flag warnings up for a portion of my stay. I kept informed by following fire weather alerts from the National Weather Service. Because I was busy and also unfamiliar with the geography, I asked one of my friends to let me know if I should be aware of any fire danger near where I was staying or traveling. At the same time, I knew from what I have learned about CAL FIRE over the eight plus years that I have been blogging on aerial wildland firefighting that CAL FIRE and their partner agencies would be working to keep myself and more importantly my family and friends safe. There were no wildfires that I knew of either near where I was staying that week or near where I had to travel.

I am very grateful and want to thank CAL Fire and their partner agencies (local and national) for keeping my family and friends in southern California safe!

CAL FIRE has a good collection of fact sheets available on all aspects of CAL FIRE operations at the CAL FIRE communications web page, including but not limited to several factsheets on their aviation program. I will leave you to your own devices to check out all their aviation related fact sheets, but to get you started you may want to read this overview on the CAL FIRE Aviation Program, and some information about their S2-T tankers. I wrote in early August that CAL FIRE hopes to replace their Super Huey Helicopters with Blackhawk Helicopters.

In the months after I started blogging on aerial wildland firefighting in early 2009 I learned a lot about ground and air wildland firefighting through following wildfires including but not limted to the Station Fire. I followed the aerial and ground operations on live stream from southern California TV station, learning a lot with the help of a couple of former tanker pilots who always patiently answered my questions (and they still do answer my questions and otherwise help me out!). Of course at the same time I was following other wildfires that there then burning elsewhere in the US. I was off on a great adventure as I continued to learn and blog about wildland firefighting in the air in support of firefighters on the ground.

As time went on I continued to blog on aerial and ground-based wildland firefighting. Somewhere around 2012, I began to blog more on other aviation and meteorological issues unrelated to wildland firefighting. But I do and will always have a special place and affection for aerial wildland firefighting in support of wildland firefighters on the ground. So, while I do sometimes blog on my interests in aviation and weather, I do always return to blog about aerial wildland firefighting. CAL FIRE continues to hold one of the special places in my heart for all that I learned about wildland firefighting in the first year or so of blogging on aerial wildland firefighting. And as I said earlier, my feeling for CAL FIRE are personal because of my family and friends in southern California.

Thank-you CAL FIRE!