Fight for a Super Firefighter

Asserting that 30 years of talking and six years of testing are plenty, canyon-area residents are demanding that Los Angeles County bite the bullet and buy a pair of SuperScooper firefighting planes and base them permanently at Van Nuys Airport.

Famed for their ability to swoop down and scoop 1,600 gallons from the ocean or a reservoir, then dart into a flaming canyon, two SuperScoopers have been leased in Canada for use here for the last six fire seasons.

But the rental agreement with Quebec officials expires this fall. And leaders of the Topanga-based Citizens for Aerial Fire Protection are saying enough’s enough: Buy them, already.

Feeling the heat is the Los Angeles County Fire Department, which says it has finished evaluating the SuperScooper and is now testing a rival firefighting aircraft--a huge, snorkel-equipped helicopter tanker.

Fire officials plan in early August to seek approval from the county Board of Supervisors for a $1.4-million rental fee for use of the SuperScooper this year. Under this year’s proposal, Quebec will send two aircraft--along with pilots and a mechanic--to Los Angeles from Sept. 1 to Nov. 29.

That three-month period is typically the height of the Southern California brush fire season, officials say. If wildfire danger lasts longer than expected, use of the two rented aircraft could be extended.

Members of Aerial Fire Protection say Los Angeles needs full-time access to the SuperScooper, however. They contend that the rental arrangement could collapse if Quebec’s own summertime fire season lingers into the autumn.

They also cite climatologists’ predictions that Southern California could be facing drought for the next 25 years, meaning the region could face destructive wildfires virtually year-round, according to the group.

Leaders say the group organized after watching May’s disaster in Los Alamos, N.M., where a prescribed-burn, brush-clearing effort flared into a conflagration that destroyed part of a town.

“We were appalled. I think the whole community was,” organizer Tony Morris said. “They had no aircraft there when it went out of control. Topanga is a very fragile community and we could go up in smoke the same way.”

Morris and others say the county could join with the state and with the city of Los Angeles in paying for the $27-million planes, formally called the Canadair 415. They say the aircraft could be rented out to other jurisdictions during Los Angeles’ rainy season, much as Quebec does now.

Purchase of the aircraft would mark the success of an effort begun in 1970 by the manufacturer of the SuperScooper to sell it here. Although the plane is used in eight other countries for firefighting, the only U.S. owner of a SuperScooper is the North Carolina forestry department. It purchased one two years ago after leasing it for five years in an arrangement similar to Los Angeles County’s.

Morris, a construction manager and writer who has lived in the Santa Monica Mountains since 1988, said the encroaching “urban interface” there and in mountainous areas around the San Gabriel and Santa Clarita valleys is increasing the wildfire threat each year.

He said the SuperScooper--with the plane’s capability for quickly refilling with water and mixing it with fire retardant--is a critical tool for fast response to brush fires that are just starting.

County fire officials agree. But they question whether buying the planes is a better deal than leasing them.

County Says It Didn’t Plan to Buy

“The SuperScooper has a definite and planned place in our annual fire-season air-attack program. To purchase them has never been part of our plan,” County Fire Chief P. Michael Freeman said this week after learning of the citizen group’s proposal.

But the county might be interested in teaming up with other agencies on a purchase if the right kind of deal is made.

“If, through some agreement, the state can come up with a program that is as good as what we’ve got and it won’t cost our taxpayers any more than what they’re paying, we’d be very interested,” Freeman said.

Although county-leased SuperScoopers have twice been sent to fight brush fires in neighboring Ventura County, they have never been used in Orange, Riverside or San Bernardino counties, Freeman said. They are routinely dispatched to brush fires in the city of Los Angeles through a mutual-aid agreement.

The county Fire Department has its own fleet of eight water-dropping helicopters that double as air ambulances between brush fires. One of the helicopters crash-landed and was damaged last weekend while fighting a brush fire in Santa Clarita; officials are evaluating whether it can be repaired and returned to use.

The county helicopters can drop 360 gallons of water at a time after their tanks are filled by hand from the ground. But the county is also evaluating the Erickson Air-Crane Helitanker--a mammoth helicopter that uses a snorkel to suck water out of lakes and reservoirs and into its 2,000-gallon tank.

The Helitanker’s water-dropping capability is far greater than that of a regular helicopter but much less than that of the SuperScooper. But it can also be outfitted with an accessory nozzle that can spray water sideways into burning high-rise buildings.

Helitankers sell for about $14 million. The county plans to lease one for use during the coming wildfire season for $1.2 million, Freeman said.

Firefighters say the Helitanker is more maneuverable in steep canyon areas than the SuperScooper and can pinpoint water drops more closely.

Although its ability to fly at low levels in mountainous terrain is used as a selling point by the SuperScooper’s manufacturer, Canada’s Bombardier Inc., the aircraft was involved in what may have been its first fatal crash last week in Greece.

Two Greek military pilots died Saturday when an older-model SuperScooper crashed while preparing to drop water on a forest fire. Greek authorities said the cause of the crash was not immediately known, although it could have been the result of crew fatigue because the craft had been in almost constant use for three days.

Bombardier officials in Montreal, where the company is reportedly shut down this week for vacation, could not be reached for comment.

Topanga Canyon residents and property owners said their faith in the SuperScooper remains unshaken. They said they plan to invite the SuperScooper pilots from Quebec to a community potluck dinner when they arrive in September so the airmen can get a feel for the canyon terrain--and a feel for the property they could be called upon this fall to help save.

“An aerial response is the only way to go in an area like Topanga,” said Pat Burke, owner of Pat’s Topanga Grill and a 50-year resident of the Santa Monica Mountains. “Up here they can help save lives and homes.”