Killea Bill Seeks More Firefighting Air Tankers

Pointing out that last week’s catastrophic Normal Heights fire had shown “the problems a delay” in fighting a blaze can cause, Assemblywoman Lucy Killea (D-San Diego) has introduced legislation to expand the state’s force of firefighting air tankers.

Two emergency bills, which would require $2.7 million in state spending, were introduced Wednesday by Killea and approved unanimously Thursday by the Assembly Natural Resources Committee.

Killea said she hopes to get the two bills--one of which could add three contract air tankers to the California Department of Forestry’s force this fire season--to Gov. George Deukmejian’s desk next week.

The two bills would appropriate $1.5 million to contract for as many as three additional tankers this year, and $1.2 million to convert three surplus military airplanes to air tankers by next July.

Killea’s bills, co-authored by Sen. William Craven (R-Oceanside) and Assemblyman Larry Stirling (R-San Diego), would require that the new tankers be stationed in the Southern Calfornia region that stretches from San Diego and Imperial counties northward to Kern and Ventura counties.

Both bills call for the money to come from Deukmejian’s carefully protected $1-billion reserve “for economic uncertainties,” which prompted Assemblywoman Marian W. La Follette (R-Northridge) to warn Killea that she was “asking for a veto.”

But Killea said she hopes to win Deukmejian’s support for the bills, adding, “That cushion (the budget reserve) is supposed to be there to take care of an emergency . . . If this isn’t an emergency, I don’t know what is.”

Killea said she introduced her bills without any discussions with the Deukmejian Administration and after only an informal inquiry with the Forestry Department.

She said the department “simply doesn’t have the equipment” to respond adequately to any series of fires such as those that have charred almost 300,000 acres across the state since June 28.

Killea’s district includes the San Diego community of Normal Heights, where a fire on June 30 destroyed or heavily damaged 102 homes and 18 vehicles, causing at least $8.5 million in damage. When San Diego fire officials first called the Forestry Department around 1 p.m. to ask about the availability of tankers, they were told that all were already in use elsewhere. The tanker planes finally were diverted to San Diego by forestry officials late in the afternoon and arrived at the fire at 6:27 p.m.

“I’m not trying to do anything to fix blame,” Killea said. “We just have to do something to augment our forces.”

Maxine Jeffries, assistant to the director of the Forestry Department, said Killea’s bills caught department officials by surprise.

“We heard about them this morning,” Jeffries said. “It’s reactionary legislation, which is not to say it is not a good idea. It just would have been better if she had discussed it with us first.”

Jeffries said department officials had not had time to study the issue or discuss a position with the Administration.

“We can always use equipment, but we are kind of out on a limb” on this proposal, she added.

Currently, the state Forestry Department owns, leases or contracts for 47 air tankers. An additional five air tankers operated by the Air National Guard are stationed in California, but they are rarely used because of the time it takes to get them in the air.