The need for aircraft to attack the fire was expressed from the first
stages of the incident. The Captain of Engine 19 requested mutual aid
from CDF at 1059 hours, and this was echoed by the Assistant Chief who
was still en route at 1104 hours. Both of these officers expected that CDF
would be responding with air tankers to drop slurry on the flanks of the
fire, as well as helicopters to make direct water drops. The Assistant Chief
used the key phrase “threat zone” to indicate that the fire was in an area
where it could spread to wildland areas within CDF jurisdiction.
When the request was passed from Oakland Fire Communications
to CDF at Morgan Hill, there was confusion over the terminology that was
used. The normal mutual aid response, which includes a single Helitack
unit was dispatched. The confusion was based on the terminology of the
request for “air operations,” since this refers to a particular individual in the ICS structure. It took several minutes to clarify that the request was
for air support and the only available air tankers had been dispatched to
other incidents.
When the officers at the scene made repeated urgent requests for
aircraft and were reassured that they were coming, only the one Helitack
unit was actually en route. It was not until 1236 hours that the two tankers
responding to the Franklin Canyon fire were rerouted to Oakland, and it
was 1300 hours before they were overhead. A third air tanker was
dispatched from Ukiah at 1239, with an ETA of 1316 hours.
The diversion of the first two tankers and the dispatch of the third
were based on the intervention of the Contra Costa County Assistant
Chief, who convinced CDF of the urgent need for aircraft and accepted
responsibility for the cost. Several more air tankers were deployed to
Oakland during the afternoon, as quickly as they could be released from
other wildland fires in California. Contra Costa County also activated a
privately owned (contract) water drop helicopter to assist Oakland.
Initially, a Captain at the Oakland Communications Center tried to
coordinate the aircraft operations over the radio. Later in the afternoon, a
CDF Battalion Chief, located at the Command Post, took over the task of
communicating with the spotter aircraft and communicated the priorities
for air attack operations. The primary objectives were to stop the fire’s
advance to the southwest, along both sides of Highway 13. The area where
the Berkeley Fire Department was trying to make a stand, north of
Highway 24, was a third priority for the aircraft.
It was extremely difficult for the spotter aircraft to see through the
smoke and for the tanker pilots to find a clear run to their target areas.
To make bombing runs into the wind would have required the aircraft to
fly directly toward the smoke-obscured hills. Flying with the wind required
the aircraft to maintain higher than normal altitudes, and the combination
of altitude, wind, and thermal updrafts significantly reduced the
effectiveness of their drops. After each run, the aircraft had to return to
Santa Rosa Airport to refill their slurry tanks; a round trip which takes
approximately one hour.
Water drops from helicopters were more effective in reaching their
targets, but their water capacity is limited and the pilots had great difficulty
with the wind and smoke conditions. Lake Temescal provided an ideal
source for refilling the helicopter water buckets, within 60 seconds flying
time of the drop zones, and Lake Merritt was available as an alternate.
The helicopter drops are most effective in quenching a particular hot spot,
as opposed to the fixed wing tankers’ specialty of dropping slurry along a
line. The fire’s thermal column was extremely hazardous to low flying
helicopters, forcing the pilots to work carefully along the flanks, avoiding
the head of the fire where the superheated air would have been disastrous.
Next » Analysis - Water Supply
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