Edition:
November 9, 2007
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The Friday Flyer Editor
Canyon Lake resident Jimmy Meyer works as a freelance photographer and news cameraman for SIP Productions and On Request Images, shooting live news stories, special events and photo shoots. During the recent firestorms ravaging Southern California, Associated Press (AP) producers in Washington DC asked him to cover the fires by traveling to different destinations across San Diego County.
He was on his own without a producer or reporter, carrying a Sony Betacam SP video camera and fresh batteries. The assignment: cover the story and find a satellite truck to transmit it to Washington DC at the end of each day, October 22 to 28. Workdays were 14 hours long.
Over the course of seven days he covered stories in Rancho Bernardo, Poway, San Diego, Del Mar, La Jolla, Fallbrook, Pala, Julian, Borrego Springs, Ramona and the Naval Air Station in San Diego. Sometimes he was on the ground; sometimes he was in the air.
He covered destruction at the mobile home park in Fallbrook; the evacuation of the Poway Hospital; the evacuation of Julian; Ramona’s loss of power and water after residents returned home; the La Jolla evacuation, focusing on business owners in town, and the arrival of the National Guard at the Del Mar Racetrack evacuation center.
He also covered Governor Schwarzenegger’s visit to Rancho Bernardo and interacted with homeowners in Rancho Bernardo as they sifted through the rubble of their homes. He covered the Pala fire as it crossed I-15 and he flew in a U.S. Navy in helicopter as it did fire suppression from the air.
“Some towns like Julian had no stories when I arrived – there was no fire and no residents,” says Jimmy. “They had all been evacuated and were trying to sneak back into town to feed and water the pets they left behind, even though there was no power or water. The fire chief told me that, though the fire was west of Julian, if they let residents return and block the highways with their autos, the Santa Anas could stop blowing and the wind could reverse the fire’s direction back toward town.”
So, instead, Jimmy did a story about woman who owned a cafe who stayed in town to cook for all the firemen. She spent $9,000 out of her own pocket to feed the hungry men by setting up a cook stove and using propane to prepare the meals.
The Canyon Lake newsman says the strangest thing he saw was in Fallbrook and Rancho Bernardo, where he would see six homes in a neighborhood, with the one in the middle gone and the others untouched. When he asked people why this was, no one seemed to have an answer. Some said perhaps it had a wood-shingle roof or perhaps hot embers had flown under the eves of a tile roof.
He learned from one firefighter that fires sometimes are started when the wind blows hard, causing power lines next to each other to touch. The discharge after the wires touch causes the aluminum shield around the wires to melt and turn molten, with the resulting molten drops sometimes landing in dry brush.
He learned about fire suppression from the air while flying on a U.S. Navy helicopter along the Mexican border east of San Diego.
“When I flew with the Navy, I learned that, when helicopters dump water on a fire, it doesn’t put it out – it only delays it,” says Jimmy. “To put out a ridge fire, you have to have a ground crew turn the soil to extinguish it below the ground where it still burns through the root system of plants.
“Why not just send up hundreds of helicopters with buckets to put out a fire?’ was a question I heard often in my travels,” says Jimmy, who adds the answer is threefold: air traffic control, training and time.
He notes an air control official, usually with the Department of Forestry, must coordinate military and private contractors at the same time, trying to tell them where to drop water. “They have to use different call signs, and the jargon used by both groups, which is different, sometimes needs to be translated so everyone understands what’s going on at the same time,” he notes. “There is no way one person can coordinate that many aircraft at the same time and in a small air space.
“Also, when you have a bucket of water dangling 50 feet below your helicopter, you have to make sure you don’t snag it on a power line as you fly. This means you need to know the area,” says Jimmy. “Many of the pilots brought in were from other states and did not know the area. They had to be guided.”
In addition, inexperienced pilots who don’t have the proper training can actually stoke a fire by flying too close to the ground with their helicopters rotor wash, he learned. There’s also the time element. In Jimmy’s case, the squadron of six helicopters with which he was flying had to travel to the fire location and find somewhere safe to land and attach the collapsible fire bucket to the cable under the helicopter.
They then had to look for a water source to fill the bucket and take it to the fire location, circle until they were told where to drop it, and repeat this process up to 200 times a day. “My pilot flies commercial airlines when he’s not putting out fires – all these pilots and flight crews risk their lives trying to save lives and property and should be applauded for their efforts,” says Jimmy.
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