Examining the Station fire

Re “Time for action came and went,” Nov. 1

Several days after the Station fire began, I attended a press conference at the fire command center. The governor spoke, along with other officials.

I could not believe my ears when a Forest Service representative announced that three to five homes had burned the day before. My neighbors and I, from the Vogel Flats area/Big Tujunga Canyon, had heard eyewitness reports (and seen photos on Facebook) of more than 20 homes in our neighborhood that had burned down that day.

It is hard enough to lose one’s home. It is even more difficult to have almost your entire neighborhood decimated without, apparently, any knowledge of this from those who are supposedly in charge.

Beth Halaas

Tujunga

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Sunday’s article reminded me of The Times’ July 2008 story, “Just for show?,” which reported that firefighting air-tanker drops were “sometimes a needless and expensive exercise to appease politicians.”

One cannot help but wonder if the decision to delay air-tanker support in August may have been fueled by the bad memories, and perhaps managerial reprimand, resulting from your earlier article?

We know a newspaper’s job is to report the facts and raise questions and controversy. But were the end results worse than we could have ever imagined?

John S. Davis

Acton