Yesterday firefighters stopped the spread of a wildfire in Southern California in the San Bernardino National Forest after it burned about 35 acres in Cactus Flats east of Big Bear Lake. Soon after it started it was putting up a smoke plume with occasional puffs of dense black smoke. The incident commander ordered a total of six fixed wing air tankers which assisted firefighters as they installed a hose lay around the perimeter.
The video below was shot by the FIRIS aircraft at 2:22 p.m. PDT April 30, 2022.
Now there’s an IC that has his or her act together by ordering what sounds like a “round robin” of airtankers to jump on this fire start out of the gate! Just by looking at the fuels they were dealing with, that was the right call for sure. Spend the money upfront so as not to have to spend many times over that amount later when the fire explodes.
I’m glad to see there were that many available.
If anyone hears how this was started I’d really appreciate it if you’d post it.
Thank you
Fire sure appears to be in an old burn
And more importantly, it’s great that there were so many air resources actually nearby and available. It almost makes it appear as if the reasons other fires aren’t beaten down immediately and with lower acreage is because ICs are not calling in air resources – or they aren’t being given them, and we all know that’s not always accurate. I’m waiting to see the naive media and others in the same camp to claim that “THIS is how it should be done!”
I’m from Big Bear, great job IC! It was heading toward the Baldwin Lake area where there is an old burn area. It’s going to be a long summer!
AND putting a hose lay around the fire! Glad to see that, don’t hear about that happening too often any more. Sounds like a good fire to shake the rust off.