Station Fire: CalFire lead air attack officer contradicts USFS claims

Community members in the areas affected by the Station Fire have been saying since the first week of that month-long inferno that the US Forest Service screwed up by paying far more attention to the rich people's fire down in Rancho Palos Verdes.

Like good bureaucrats, the Forest Service has steadfastly denied it.

Now comes a seriously damning report by CalFire's lead air attack officer that his repeated, impassioned attempts to get more airpower on the fire before it went rogue were entirely ignored. The report includes radio transmission recordings and log files.

Quel surprise.

My home didn't burn in the Station Fire, but it came close again and again and again and again. We spent 30 days breathing carcinogenic pea soup air and packing and unpacking to get out of Dodge at a moment's notice, while wondering if we should even sleep for fear of being overrun during the night. It was a month of pure freaking hell. Today, one of our horses has permanent lung damage from breathing the air.

I want those USFS guys dead, metaphorically speaking.

I imagine there are others who lost homes and property that want far worse for the USFS jerks. Take the families of the two La County Firefighters who lost their lives, for starters.

Read the account of the day firefighters Ted Hall and Arnie Quinones lost their lives here.


Image: AP Photo/Dan Steinberg