Santa Maria Air Tanker Reload Base wildfire response controversy

Fire, forest officials at odds over SMX tanker base

Los Padres National Forest officials insist recent revisions to operations at the Santa Maria Air Tanker Reload Base have not degraded initial air-attack response to local wildfires.

However, Santa Maria’s top fire official and others continue to believe otherwise.

They contend initial air attack responses to fires within Los Padres National Forest and other locations will be crippled in the early hours of a reported wildfire, and have begun lobbying local elected officials to restore the base status and staffing.

Two key tanker base positions — fixed-wing base manager and assistant fixed-wing base manager — were eliminated as part of a March 19 reorganization of Los Padres National Forest staff.

Additionally, the base was downgraded from a full-service operation to a standby “call when needed” center.

The Santa Maria Public Airport has been the aerial reload headquarters for fighting fires from Ventura County to San Luis Obispo County for the past two fire seasons. Tankers have used the base to refuel and to fill up with red-colored fire-retardant material.

John Heil, a Forest Service spokesman for the Pacific Southwest Region, said the changes were made for cost effectiveness and more efficiency. A Cal Fire tanker base in Paso Robles will be used instead for refueling and retardant loading operations until the Santa Maria base is activated.

Los Padres Forest Supervisor Peggy Hernandez addressed concerns on the staffing and status changes at the base in an commentary Thursday in the Santa Maria Times.

Although the base status has shifted to “call when needed,”

Hernandez wrote “Our ability to provide support to air tankers out of Santa Maria is unchanged. Our contract with SMX vendors clearly stipulates that fuel and retardant must be ready to pump within four hours of notification. This is the same language that governed the contract last year.”

Further, staffing and resources will be place within four hours to begin operations at SMX if a fire breaks out, according to Hernandez.

In March 2007, the base moved to Santa Maria after 48 years at the Santa Barbara Airport. The shift to the North County was meant to reduce response times to fires in the huge Los Padres National Forest, and to save the agency money.

The Forest Service has used office space and facilities at the Central Coast Jet Center, located on the south side of the airfield. Central Coast Jet Center developed the tanker base, and has a five-year lease with the Forest Service.

One of the bones of contention is an April 3 Forest Service Pacific Southwest Region briefing document on the SMX air tanker base.

The file states “After two years of operating under the experimental contract, the forest determined that the structure of that contract led to increased firefighting costs, insufficiencies in staffing, and duplicate coverage with other nearby permanent bases — with no measurable improvement to firefighting capability or firefighter and public safety. The forest discontinued the full-service contract and changed to a call-when-needed contract. The Santa Maria reload base is not closed.”

Further, “Initial attack fire response on the forest and in the region will not be compromised because of this reorganization.”

Over the past two weeks, Jim Kunkle, owner and president of the Central Coast Jet Center, has met with local representatives of Senator Diane Feinstein and Congresswoman Lois Capps on the tanker-base issue.

In an April 23 letter to Feinstein, the date he met with one of her aides in Santa Barbara, Kunkle wrote that the Forest Service briefing “contains incorrect information” and the involvement of many — local co-operators, local agencies and the assistant fire chief and aviation officer for Los Padres — was lacking.

“The downgrading of the Santa Maria Air Tanker Base was made hastily, without accurate information, without proper input from any of the affected agencies and communities,” he wrote.

Also, a call-when-needed contract is more expensive than a full-service one based on retardant, personnel and other costs, according to Kunkle.

A group of fire department heads from Santa Maria, Lompoc, Santa Barbara, Guadalupe, Santa Barbara County, Montecito Fire Protection District, Carpinteria-Summerland Fire Protection District, and Vandenberg Air Force Base also have disputed the briefing.

The Fire Chiefs Association of Santa Barbara County, of which Santa Maria Fire Chief Frank Ortiz is the senior member, wrote to Pacific Southwest Region Forester Randy Moore and Hernandez on April 16 that, “we are surprised by the inference that operations from the Santa Maria location were characterized as inefficient.”

According to the letter, they collectively agree the move from Santa Barbara to Santa Maria proved to be cost-efficient and a sound operation, while playing a critical role in initial air attack operations.

To address their concerns, a number of fire chiefs met April 24 with Ed Hollenshead, Forest Service Pacific Southwest Region director of fire and aviation management.

Andrew Madsen, public affairs officer for Los Padres, said there have been many “misunderstandings” about the tanker-base decision, and the meeting was a chance to “clear the air.”

Those who attended the meeting left with an understanding of the issues, he said.

Madsen reiterated the base has not closed, and will operate the same as last year.

“We’ll see how it plays out, “he said. “We’re confident it will work out.”

Although he was unable to attend, Ortiz said he’s talked to the other chiefs and they seemed pleased with a compromise for an initial air attack setup within four hours of notification.

Ortiz said he was willing to let concerns die in the spirit of cooperation with the Forest Service.

However, the Hernandez commentary disturbed him.

“It’s basically a scolding, and I don’t like being scolded,” he said.

Ortiz believes even a four-hour window for initial air attack is too much, as fire damage to vulnerable Santa Barbara County front country could be widespread in a brief period of time.

“There’s a lot of fires that can get away from you in four hours,” he said.

On top of that, Ortiz said, the four-hour window specification Hernandez referred to was not part of the existing contract.

Kunkle said it was his understanding last year’s contract was not based on a four-hour call, but it could have been.

The Forest Service contracts with ICL Performance Products of Ontario for a fire-retardant product known as Phos-Chek, Kunkle said.

Requests for a copy of the contract from the Forest Service were not returned by press time.

Source: santamariatimes.com - Link