Snafus Hamper Air Guard Tankers

While much of Ventura County burned Wednesday, two Air National Guard firefighting C-130s stood idle at the 146th Channel Islands Air National Guard base, apparently paralyzed by red tape, miscommunication and mechanical malfunctions.

Guard officials at the base said they received authorization to begin aerial retardant drops from Gov. Pete Wilson about 1 p.m. Wednesday, but did not receive a necessary launch order from the U.S. Forest Service until Thursday morning.

Without the launch order, the two C-130 Hercules turboprops could not depart the base to assist the effort to stop the wildfires that were devastating large parts of the county. The Forest Service is the agency responsible for coordinating and approving the tanker flights.

“We were ready. We had the personnel and we had the aircraft,” said Air Guard Maj. Michael Ritz, a spokesman for the base. “What we didn’t have was a launch order.”

Ritz said the base finally received a launch order Thursday morning at 7 a.m. and the aircraft began dropping retardant about two hours later.

Had they received orders to proceed the day before, National Guard planes could have made as many as 30 passes over nearby fires, base officials said.

Forest Service officials said a tangle of regulations and logistical mishaps prevented them from acting quickly enough to have planes in the air Wednesday.

“We had two totally separate problems,” said Charles McDonald, coordinator of the air operation for the U.S. Forest Service.

One problem, McDonald said, was that the equipment used to fill the tanks of the C-130s with fire retardant malfunctioned and needed additional time to set up.

Crews from the Forest Service with the technical skills needed to prepare the base for a firefighting mission did not complete their work until 10:30 p.m. Wednesday, McDonald said.

In addition, McDonald said the tankers need a smaller plane to work with crews on the ground in order to guide them to the precise spots where the retardant was needed.

“During the day (Wednesday), the National (Interagency) Fire Center in Boise was looking for the availability of commercial air tankers. They were not able to make the determination that all supplies had been exhausted until late yesterday afternoon.”

But according to Skip Scott, a spokesman for the center, as soon as the governor gives the order, the Air Guard tankers “are free to take to the air.”

“The search for civilian air tankers is in no way an impediment to the use of MAFFS units,” Scott said. McDonald could not be reached later Thursday to explain the discrepancy.

The tankers’ lead plane was not made available to the National Guard until after sundown, when it was too late to fly. McDonald said that although there was a delay in getting the tankers into the air, a federal regulation requiring that the guard be prepared to fly within 24 hours of receiving an order was met.

“As you can imagine, with 13 fires going at once, to get a lead plane while all this was going on was very complicated,” said Dennis Orrick, a coordinator from the California Department of Forestry. “It was extremely difficult to get things just where we wanted them.”

Orrick added that while the rules may have presented an impediment to getting the Air Guard’s tankers off the ground Wednesday, they serve a purpose.

“The rules can cut both ways. Having these procedures in place can make things more efficient as well as less efficient,” Orrick said. “Yes, there may be some delays, but our history shows us that without this command structure, everything gets so confused that you end up making many, many more mistakes.”

But according to Alan Campbell, a spokesman for the Ventura County Fire Department, the absence of the Air Guard tankers was felt Wednesday on the fire lines.

“Air support always plays a major role in fighting a fire like this. It’s not only helpful in slowing the fire down, it’s a matter of protecting the safety of the guys that are down there,” Campbell said. “Yesterday, the way the fire was acting, we could have used a lot more air drops because the conditions were right for it.”

Echoing Campbell was Capt. John Bryden of the California Department of Forestry.

“There were many more homes burning than there were air tankers,” Bryden said from the Riverside-based office where the California and U.S. Forest Service officials coordinate regional air tanker support. “I’m sure we could use more. . . .But there’s a limit on the availability and the number we could reload.”

Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) earlier this month introduced legislation in Congress to replace the Air Guard’s 12 modular airborne firefighting system (MAFFS) units--devices designed to slide into the cargo bays of the huge, four-engine military transports. Aircraft equipped with the MAFFS units can drop as much as 3,000 gallons of retardant at a time.

At an Oct. 4 news conference at the Guard’s base, which is next to the Point Mugu Naval Air Weapons Station, Gallegly said he would shepherd a bill that would arrange financing to buy the new MAFFS units.

Gallegly’s deputy, John Frith, said the congressman was “very concerned” about the Air Guard’s delay and was en route to Ventura County from Washington on Thursday to inspect the area’s extensive fire damage and to investigate why the tankers were delayed.

“At this point everyone is pointing fingers at everyone else,” Frith said. “And while they’re doing that, brush is burning.”

The Air Guard’s wing commander, Col. John Iffland, agreed that fighting fires by air is complicated and dangerous.

“You have to have all these pieces in place or you’ll kill somebody. We can’t be lone rangers about this--everyone needs to be coordinated.”

Still, after seeing a wall of flames from the Thousand Oaks/Malibu brush fire devour Laguna Peak and crawl down the mountain toward the sea, Iffland said his unit was ready and anxious to get into the air.

“I was ready with an airplane at 11 a.m. I was ready with the fire retardant at 1 p.m. We could have done 30 sorties between 1 p.m. and sundown,” Iffland said.

“We were easily within the range of these fires. Do not characterize me as second-guessing the Forest Service. I am not privy to all the other ingredients involved, but our job was to be prepared and ready to go and that’s what we did,” he said.