Topanga: Taming the Wildfires

Tony Morris
Special to the Mirror

   PART I

   The Topanga/Malibu wild fires of 1993 killed three people destroyed 350 homes and caused over $350 million in property damage.
   In the aftermath of the fires, a group of Topanga residents met to discuss the vulnerability of urban wild land communities like Topanga and Malibu and the need for an effective aerial firefighting arsenal.
   Calling itself Citizens For Aerial Fire Protection, the grass roots group began meeting with homeowners’ associations around Los Angeles county to discuss the need to create such an arsenal that could be permanently deployed for use by area firefighters.
   In 2001, the group changed its name to Aerial Fire Protection Associates.
   When the fire broke out on Old Topanga Canyon Road in 1993, the Los Angeles County Fire Department did not have either Canadian built SuperScoopers or Sikorsky Firehawks in its arsenal.
   In 1994, Fire Chief P. Michael Freeman and County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsly arranged to lease two SuperScoopers from the Service Aerien of Quebec Province, and the County has had the big planes on hand from September through December every year since then.
   The CL-415 SuperScooper can scoop 1,620 gallons in 12 seconds from the Pacific ocean, lakes or reservoirs. The county also now owns two Sikorsky Firehawks which can siphon 1,000 gallons in 50 seconds, making the L.A. County Fire Department one of the country’s most modern and effective firefighting agencies.
   On February 18, 2004, AFPA presented a 36 page report entitled “ Can we save Lives...Property...and Dollars too?!” to the 35-member Governor’s Blue Ribbon Fire Commission that by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger created after the October, 2003 wildfires.
   It calls for immediate changes in the way aircraft are used to fight wildfires. Currently, aircraft do not fly at night, so they are grounded 50% of the time. Military aircraft have used night vision radar and power line detecting video systems for years and AFPA believes that civil fire agencies should be equipped with similar technology.
   The report also calls for the establishment of a national fire science research institute to assess the major elements of wildfires. The institute would function similarly to NASA and provide a forum to pool research and develop new and improved equipment to fight wldfires.
   Such an institute could also research data on wind condition predictions and statistics for firefighters and develop high tech fire suppresion systems. Computer models could be developed to provide a comprehensive simulation of the effectiveness of vatious equipment options and their uses in a variety of potential fire scenarios.
   If a national institute is too ambitious a first step, California could create a smaller scale institute by itself or in concert with a few other states with similar terrain. The institute could be located at one of the University of California campuses. Universities in Connecticut and Arizona already have studies underway on various aspects of wildfire mitigation and suppresion technologies and research.
   PART II How to provide modern firefighting aircraft for California and a new Russian designed water scooping air tanker.
   Ed. Note: Tony Morris is a resident of Topanga and a member of Aerial Fire Protection Associates.