The intensifying winds in Southern California may make it more difficult to continue aerial combat against the wildfires which have destroyed the Los Angeles region. Over 80 helicopters and planes are used to fight the fires that have destroyed over 12,000 buildings.
Jimmy Harris, Cal Fire’s fire captain, said, “The wind is the fire.”
How aerial firefighting is done
The aircraft can release 3,000 gallons of water or span class=”link”>a data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=”” href=”https://www.cbsnews.com/news/la-fires-pink-flame-retardants-california/”>red fire retardant/a>/span> in seconds. The aircraft can release up to 3,000 gallons per second of water or fire retardant. The fleet has dropped more than 16000 gallons suppressant.
“I’m worried about the danger of flying around these fires,” First Lt. Aiden Flores, with the California Air National Guard. It’s not an ordinary mission, as they drop the fire retardant.
Rotating aircraft can be used to get closer and faster to the flames, which have scorched over 60 square miles. The Santa Ana wind is driving these raging fires.
Lt. Col. Laura Jeffrey is a Wyoming Air National Guard combat navigator who traveled to Los Angeles to help fight fires.
“We’re leaving behind our families.” “We’re leaving everything behind to come out. I wish that people understood the sacrifice we make and how important it is to us to be able to help those in need,” said she.
Jeffrey said it was “very frustrating” that winds made it difficult to fight fires from the air.
She said, “But we will sit on alert.” “We’ll wait for a break, and then try again.”
The forecasters warned that “extremely dangerous fire weather” would be present in parts of Southern California between Tuesday morning local time and Wednesday noon local time, amid more strong winds.
