Park Fire rips across 125,000 [353,000] acres in northern California

RyanWeather.com
Park Fire Morning Update 8 AM 7/28/24
From the Northern California Coordination Center:

CA-BTU Park: 353,194 acres grass, brush and timber, 12 percent contained. Extreme fire behavior reported with long-range spotting. Multiple communities are threatened. Structures are threatened with evacuation orders and warnings in place. Critical infrastructure, communication sites, power transmission lines, and private timberlands threatened. Threatened and endangered species, cultural and natural resources are also threatened.

Park Fire tanker drop 07/26
Park Fire tanker drop 07/26

Lassen National Volcanic Park is closed and the town of Paradise is under evacuation warnings.

Highways 32, 36 and Cohasset Road are closed in the fire area with additional threats to Highway 99. Numerous other road, area, and trail closures in effect. The incident is under unified command with CAL FIRE Team 3 (See), CAL FIRE Team 4 (Martin), and the Lassen National Forest.

Park Fire 07/28/24
Park Fire 07/28/24

Though the cause was earlier reported as under investigation, the Chico ER reported that investigators had arrested a Chico man suspected of igniting the fire.

07/26 FRI a.m. Park Fire burns to 164,286 acres, over 4,000 evacuated

The burned-out car that CAL FIRE investigators traced to the start of the Park Fire in Chico. The suspect is in Butte County Jail. ~ Butte County District Attorney's Office photo.
The burned-out car that CAL FIRE investigators traced to the start of the Park Fire in Chico. The suspect is in the Butte County Jail.
~ Butte County District Attorney’s Office photo.

The 42-year-old suspect is facing arson charges. Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey said Thursday that investigators apprehended Ronnie Dean Stout, a twice-convicted felon and registered sex offender.

Investigators followed up on local reports of a man pushing “a car on fire” into a gully and down a 60-foot drop near Alligator Hole in upper Bidwell Park midafternoon on Wednesday. Ramsey said the guy was seen calmly leaving the area as the fire took off.

The fire spread from the car, which Ramsey said was Stout’s mother’s car, and grew 45,000 acres overnight; it was estimated Thursday afternoon at 75,000 acres.

It’s at 125,000 acres tonight burning in both Butte and Tehama counties; numerous firefighting airtankers from throughout the state are flying as conditions allow, along with over 1,100 personnel assigned, 6 helicopters, 41 dozers and 10 watertenders, 40 crews, and 153 engines.

A fire whirl was spotted at the Park Fire in the early evening hours of July 25, 2024.~ AlertCalifornia camera
A fire whirl was spotted at the Park Fire in the early evening hours of July 25, 2024.
~ AlertCalifornia Platte Mountain camera in Butte County    Click photo to watch video
A fire tornado or fire vortex developed from the intensity of the fire on July 25. The time-lapse was captured by the ALERTCalifornia Platte Mtn 1 camera. The camera sensors can see 60-70 miles on a clear day and more than 120 miles on a clear night. Watch ALERTCalifornia’s more than 1,080 (as of July 2024) monitoring cameras live at  cameras.alertcalifornia.org 
The Park Fire was started at 3:00 p.m. yesterday and by 8:00 p.m. the IC had  requested 30 strike teams of any type engines. (Holy immediate need Batman, 150 engines!)
View from Hamilton City about 7 p.m. July 25
PARK FIRE: View from Hamilton City about 7 p.m. July 25
CAL FIRE said the fire displayed dynamic fire activity overnight. Winds are definitely a factor and the temperatures are in the 80s. Three helicopters were available for night ops, and they spent the night finding hotspots to drop water on. CAL FIRE has a dandy photo collection on flickr, including timelapse images of the smoke at the fire’s origin.
Richardson Springs camera yesterday at 8 p.m.
Richardson Springs camera yesterday at 8 p.m.
~ Gracias and a big tip o’the hardhat to Pat for this …

Aero Union 1960 – 1997

Aero Union’s Past Demonstrated Ability

~ contributed by cbk

We received this lovely little piece of historical documentation of the tanker operations — for 37 years — of Aero Union’s fleet, including its P-3 Orions flying out of Chico in northern California. The much-missed red/white P-3 ships were the last of a long line of Aero Union’s many airtankers, the red/white icons of aerial firefighting. Not many companies have a history so impressive.

Aero Union airtanker operations 1960 – 1997

Aero Union Operations 1960-1997

Aero Union operations 1960 - 1997

Aero Union operations 1960 - 1997

Aero Union operations 1960 - 1997

Aero Union operations 1960 - 1997

Aero Union operations 1960 - 1997

 

Butte County Fire partners with PG&E on firefighting helicopter

In northern California tomorrow, PG&E and Cal Fire / Butte County Fire will request from the county Board of Supervisors authorization for the use of a contract firefighting helicopter. PG&E has an existing contract with PJ Helicopters out of Red Bluff, which would provide the aircraft to PG&E and the county.

KRCR-TV spoke with Cal Fire Captain Dan Collins about the request to the board, and he said firefighting aircraft are extremely important. “They can get there before ground resources and start dropping either water or fire retardant. To provide more fire equipment to the county is nothing but beneficial to everyone.”

Butte County Fire covers fire protection within the unincorporated areas of Butte County, the City of Oroville, the Town of Paradise, and the cities of Gridley and Biggs. Collins said the Butte County Fire Department would maintain operational control of the helicopter and provide dispatch services, along with coordinating requests from other agencies.

Collins also explained that the contract would be a collaboration between Butte Fire and PG&E — so the county would not have to fund anything. If approved, the new helicopter would be stationed at the Chico Airport starting in July.

PJ HELICOPTERS:  The history of the company dates back to the early days of flight; as the great-nephew of aviation pioneer Samuel Langley, Phil Gunsauls began operating a single fixed-wing cropduster in 1968. A few years later, he decided to pursue his passion for rotorcraft. Originally using his first initial and his wife’s middle initial, “PJ’s Helicopter” started operations in 1970, and agricultural work eventually transitioned to firefighting.

Butte County fire history

 

Chico has a busy season

CAL FIRE Chief Joe Tyler back in July said he was concerned about California’s heightened wildfire risk set up by the abundance of fuels from winter and spring rains; he compared this season to the critical fire season of 2017. ActionNewsNow reported that Tom Bahr, Chico’s airport manager, said that Chico Regional Airport was one of 14 designated airtanker bases statewide for aerial firefighting, and it has indeed been busy.

Erickson Aero Tanker's MD-87 at Chico
Erickson Aero Tanker’s MD-87 at Chico. Smoke in the background is from the Camp Fire at Paradise, November 2018.

The airport this year played a role in heavy air attack operations, extending its reach as far north as the Oregon border, and hosting several contracted airtankers including Coulson’s 737 Fireliner and Erickson Aero Tanker’s MD-87 tanker.

Coulson 737Overseeing the air attack base at Chico Regional Airport, CAL FIRE Battalion Chief Shem Hawkins says the location is strategically important; CAL FIRE aircraft can reach the most remote State Responsibility Area (SRA) fires within approximately 20 minutes, with the goal of keeping 95 percent of fires at 10 acres or under.

Earlier in the summer, Chico’s Airport hosted training ops for Aero-Flite, and CAL FIRE had installed a new water tank, providing local helitack with immediate response capabilities. The City of Chico Airport Manager’s Office, along with local entities operating at the airport, worked with the Forest Service to ensure that airtanker and helitack operations had solid support.

At the northern end of the airport, the Chico Air Attack Base hosted a CH-47 Chinook, operated by Billings Flying Service under contract, which assisted ground crews throughout the summer.

Chico Fire Chief Steve Standridge commended the partnership between the Chico Fire Department and CAL FIRE Butte. He noted the economic benefits to the local area from the air attack base, along with immediate access to CAL FIRE air resources for fires in interface areas. In return, the Chico Fire Department provided firefighting support to CAL FIRE, the USFS, and military air assets at the airport during the fire season.

Built in 1969, Chico Air Attack Base (CAAB) is home to an OV-10A air attack and an S2T airtanker. The S2T can carry 1,200 gallons of retardant and provides fast, aggressive initial attack. The OV-10A is a command-and-control aircraft, coordinating the S2T with other aircraft from other airtanker bases.

OV-10

Any airtanker landing at Chico can load with retardant in one of three drive-through pits, and within minutes depart with a fresh load. CAAB can supply 100,000 gallons of retardant per day, and because of its long runway, can also service and support most of the large airtankers currently in use. It’s not uncommon to see as many as seven tankers moving through the pits at Chico.

Personnel assigned to the base include one battalion chief, two fire captains, one fire apparatus engineer, seven firefighters, two contract pilots, and one contract aircraft mechanic. For more info on the base, check out their county page or this video by KRCR-TV.

Tanker 60 makes emergency landing at Chico

Air Tanker 60, an Erickson Aero Tanker DC-7B, made an emergency landing at the Chico, California airport Thursday morning. A person who was monitoring radio traffic told Fire Aviation that the pilot declared an emergency after shutting down the #3 engine and losing all hydraulics. The video was apparently captured by someone on the nearby Eaton Road that borders the airport.

The pilots deserve kudos for keeping the aircraft on the runway.

Click on the image above and you’ll be taken to the Action News Now website where you can view it. The resolution on the video is very poor, but you can pretty much tell what is happening.

Tanker 60
File photo of Tanker 60 taken by Bill Gabbert at Madras, Oregon June 13, 2016.

This DC-7B is 58 years old, manufactured in 1958. Over the last three to four years several P2V air tankers in that same age range have had serious problems with hydraulics that resulted in problems as they landed.

In 2006 a P2V operated by Neptune lost an engine due to a bad piston shortly after taking off from Chico. Pilot Dale Dahl dumped the retardant east of the airport and landed without incident.