Update September 18, 2020: The video was shot during the Almeda Fire in Southern Oregon September 8, 2020 by Loren Julien. It was just after he put sprinklers on his sister Annette Julien’s house and left the area — the house seen with the wet roof. Ms. Julien told me her house did not survive.
I wonder where in history the VLAT program would have “ended” up if it wasn’t for Cal Fire investigating the potential and using validated input from the field (ground and air) employees to make a decision to move forward, with support from Cal Fire management? The DC 10 and 747 have proven their effectiveness. What is the next exploration mission for Cal Fire Aviation?
Heroes all . . . ! Good call for ‘mission’. Smokejumpers are the first to go in when ‘war’ plans develop (with ‘escape’ routes). . . along with early ‘bombardment’ by ‘Heavies’, after the wildland crews had scouted, trimmed and gauged potential containment problems . . . ‘off-season’. We need these folks year-round . . . in training and on stand-by, like any ‘fire station’ . . . especially during El Niño droughts. Perhaps ‘human-caused’ (negligence and arson) fires might be diminished by the increased presence of ‘observers’ during ‘fire seasons’. But then that also presumes forward-thinking (state and fed) forest management . . . & managers unfettered by (conservationist) biased concerns . . . in order to overcome the incalculable cost of these so-called ‘disasters’. In aerospace, tragic airborne ‘accidents’ are ‘hot-washed’ via a ‘fault tree’ (hmmm) to seek the ‘root cause’ . . . .(hmmm again).