Thursday, May 10, 2007

On One Hand...


...the LAFD and allied agencies did a great job keeping the flames off the multi-million dollar homes in Los Feliz. On the other, their pilots were grinding it out all day and all night making crucial water drops. Luckily, none of them augered any of those Bell helos into a dark hillside or sliced through a power line or we'd all be reading a story much different than this one.


The backslapping today becomes the second-guessing of tomorrow when a bunch of firefighters get overrun on a dirt fire road or a helicopter crashes while flying night missions into smoke and fire over urban areas.
photo: Mad Science flickr

2 comments:

The Bird Nest said...

Long time reader, great stuff. One of the News agencies was providing live coverage of a brush truck crew working the hot line when wind came in behind the flame forcing a hasty retreat to an adjacent concrete bridge for possible F.S. deployment. At just the critical moment a Bell made a water drop on the approaching front cooling things down a bit so the crew could find a safety zone. I don't know if you with your contacts might be able to find this incredible film, it should would be great to post a link so your viewing public might get a glimpse of the amazing teamwork of interagency work. Thanks from a one time Pulaski swinging FS Type II crew member out of Sierra NF.

Code6Charles said...

The Bird Nest...thanks for the comment!

I too saw that footage when I was watching the live coverage early in the fire. That's when I realized it was getting away from them. I think those were some Brush Patrol guys from station 35 in Los Feliz, but I'm not sure. Let me see if I can track down some footage when I return from vacation!