USFS Releases Station Fire Transcripts

JOHN ANTCZAK
Associated Press Writer

LOS ANGELES - U.S. Forest Service officials said Thursday recordings of calls between fire managers and dispatchers show they quickly understood the gravity of a 2009 wildfire that had broken out near Los Angeles and would eventually scorch 250 square miles, kill two firefighters and destroy 89 homes.

The Forest Service released transcripts of the recordings, which it has said were only discovered after it issued an initial report defending its response to the so-called Station Fire in the Angeles National Forest.

The transcripts, with names redacted, show the difficulty of communication in the mountainous region, the problem of scrounging up resources as multiple fires burned in the state, and that there were requests for aircraft to arrive by 7 a.m. on the first morning after the fire broke out.

At one point in a call, the incident commander asked for "whatever you can get" in terms of airtankers.

"And that's for first thing in the morning," an operations dispatcher said.

"Yeah," the commander said. "I mean, as soon as we can get them."

The Forest Service said in its statement that the commander was aware that the actual time that aircraft are deployed depends on requirements for pilot briefings and rest requirements for aircrews.

The conversations show efforts to comply with the commander's request for helicopters and airtankers to arrive by 7 a.m., even though there's acknowledgment that was not likely to happen, and planning to get what they need by diverting aircraft assigned to another fire burning to the east in the same forest.

"I think this thing is going to go to (expletive)," one dispatcher commented.

Aircraft did not reach the fire until later in the morning, when flames had begun spreading.

The July discovery of the recordings is under investigation by the inspector general for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the Forest Service. Such recordings had been the subject of a Freedom of Information Act request by the Los Angeles Times.

The recordings also contained what Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell called "inappropriate and unacceptable" attempts at humor by people he said were nevertheless trying to professionally deal with the fire.

"These experienced dispatchers were clearly brainstorming many options to get every possible asset to the Station Fire as soon as possible," Tidwell said in a statement. "The way they carried out their jobs tells me they were focused on the seriousness of the situation, and that is what matters in an unfolding, large scale emergency."

Critics have claimed the Forest Service didn't recognize the seriousness of the fire and didn't launch an air attack early enough on the first morning after it broke out, while it was still small.

Critics also want the Forest Service to reverse a policy against nighttime air attacks on wildfires, which prevented any overnight use of helicopters during the fire's first night.

The Forest Service's initial review released in November concluded the Station Fire did not get out of control for lack of aircraft attacking the flames or because the number of firefighters was scaled back the first night. Rather, it found the blaze began raging because it jumped into inaccessible terrain.

The service contends that it takes firefighters on the ground, not aircraft alone, to contain wildfires.

The Forest Service on Thursday pointed specifically to overnight conversations between the commander of the initial firefighting effort and a dispatcher and then a conversation between two dispatchers.

In addition to names, transcript redactions included phone numbers and law enforcement matters.

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