PETERSON AIRMEN FIGHT FIRES

0 Comments | Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Oct 24, 2007 | by TOM ROEDER

LOS ANGELES - From four miles up, the famous night lights of this massive city are missing from the horizon, shrouded by smoke so thick that the Colorado Springs airmen sent here to fight wildfires can only make out its location on radar.

Thirty airmen from Peterson Air Force Base were sent to California on short notice Tuesday to try to halt the wall of wind- driven flames that have driven hundreds of thousands of people from their homes and consumed millions of dollars in property.

Two C-130 transport planes from Peterson's 302nd Airlift Wing were sent, crewed by Air Force reservists expected to fly as many as 10 of the firefighting missions a day to fight blazes driven by Santa Ana winds racing across Southern California.

The crews are loaded with combat and firefighting veterans who aren't often impressed by disaster. But they were awed and horrified Tuesday.

"Now that's some smoke," C-130 pilot Maj. Rich Pantusa said as he flew a heavily laden four-engine transport packed with firefighting supplies. "That's something."

"I don't think I've ever seen this much smoke," said his navigator, Maj. Jim Osnes II, a veteran of more than 50 firefighting missions.

The 302nd's planes are standard military transports that can be equipped with a special system to spray out 3,000 gallons of a fire- stopping liquid. They fight fires when the Pentagon is called on as a last resort in a disaster.

"When we're called in, it's always a big deal," said flight engineer, Senior Master Sgt. Frank Miskell.

The planes are part of a nationwide response to the fires organized by U.S. Northern Command in Colorado Springs, which has the dual role of responding to disasters and preventing attacks on the United States.

The Air Force crews work with U.S. Forest Service firefighters in the air and on the ground to stop fires in their tracks by ringing them with flame retardant chemicals.

Crews work for years to earn the firefighting duty, and only the most experienced got the nod to go to California this week.

A flight over the fires Tuesday showed why skill is so critical - - hot air rushing skyward buffeted the hulking plane.

"It was thermals," said copilot Capt. Brian McReynolds after he wrenched the plane toward its destination on a circular route to avoid the worst of the plumes that have covered the region in smoke from horizon to horizon.

On the ground at Point Mugu Naval Air Station, where the Colorado crews will live for up to a month while fighting fires, locals say nature has given fire the upper hand now.

It's a combination of factors from spring moisture that caused too much grass to grow to high temperatures and 40 mph winds fanning the flames.

"Some people are calling it a perfect storm," said Naval Base Ventura Assistant Fire Chief Oscar Soto.

But the size of the challenge seems to energize the airmen from Colorado Springs, who say this is their Super Bowl.

"This is a fun mission, there's no denying it," said Lt. Col. Dave Condit, a Peterson navigator who relishes his firefighting duty.

Flight crews get to swoop in low over blazes, taking the C-130 for a 150-mph rollercoaster ride 150 feet off the ground. Dropping the retardant is like a bombing mission where accuracy is everything, and crews pride themselves on building lines that strangle flames.

The ground crews are in on the act, too.

"It's like a NASCAR pit stop," said Senior Master Sgt. Jim Crain.

Crain and his crew work to refuel the planes, refill them with retardant and return them to the air in as little as 15 minutes.

That's a fast fill-up when it involves putting more than 1,000 gallons of kerosene and 3,000 gallons of the fire-retardant slurry aboard.

"You don't feel anything when you're doing it," said another ground crew member, Tech. Sgt. Mark Shykes. "You're working too fast to have feelings."

The crews of the 302nd have been fighting fire for more than a decade and say it's the best part of their job.

"It's so real and so rewarding," Miskell said.

"Very few people get the opportunity to help people like this and get to see an immediate outcome," Pantusa said.