KHTS Radio Santa Clarita Radio – Santa Clarita News
The two Super Scoopers that are contracted from Quebec, Canada have returned to Los Angeles County for the 27th consecutive year to assist in battling brush fires, officials said.
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The two aircraft and 12 crew arrived Sunday to the Van Nuys Airport where they are stationed, and were put into service Tuesday, according to Los Angeles County Fire officials.
“It is truly an honor to welcome back for the 27th year the super scoopers to Los Angeles County,” said Los Angeles County Supervisor Katherine Barger.
With the County of Los Angeles and Santa Clarita having a dry, hot summer with little rain in the past winter, these aircraft have arrived at a crucial time, after multiple fires have already broken out growing rapidly, according to Fire officials.
“The Super Scoopers are here just in time,” said Los Angeles County Fire Department Chief Daryl Osby.
As the summer is ending, officials with the LACoFD are looking ahead at weather conditions and expect the Fall of 2020 fire season to be extreme, according to Osby.
The projected rainfall amounts for this year are expected to be below normal with temperatures above average and Santa Ana wind events to be stronger than last year between October and December, according to Osby.
The two aircraft are on a 90-day lease, however, if fires continue to be a threat at the end of the deployment the aircraft lease can be extended.
The two Super Scoopers are expected to work in tandem with each other joining the 10 existing helicopters including the two newest Blackhawk Sikorski fire hawks, to battle fires throughout Los Angeles County and Santa Clarita.
Each plane is capable of holding 1,600 gallons of water, so when they drop in tandem, they are able to put approximately 3,200 gallons of water on a fire at once.
Due to the Super Scoopers being capable of dropping such a large amount of water at once it allows firefighters to be able to gain control of fires more quickly, according to Osby.
“The first 20 to 30 minutes are critical to getting water on these fires,” Osby said.
Due to winds expected to be stronger than normal this year, Chief Osby is urging Santa Clarita residents to be prepared to evacuate if they are asked to.
The chief also encourages all residents to have a fire plan and to download the Ready Set Go program from the Department’s website and to also make sure that all homeowners have proper brush clearance around their homes.
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Why can’t we just BUY two of these, as we always need them all the time?! It’s gotta be expensive renting them! Probably would save some money down the line to just purchase them outright!
Arn. The funds to purchase would be better to put towards free housing for the homeless.
This is a logical purchase, much needed for California. But I guess the bullet train is being funded instead. SMH. Disappointed in the ejected officials we have elected in CA. Not to mention the energy crisis we are still dealing with from green energy deals.
Talia: Wish more politicians had that sensible logic & decency!! But wait, they could load the plane on the bullet train and get to the fires faster or maybe all the money the contractors made, they could buy their own scoopers and Newsom could pay the lease $$$ to them and twist the words and say “see I made smaller payments for our new fleet of scoopers”. The deceitful tricksters will always find a way with flowery words to deceive on all matters!
Where were they 3 weeks ago!!??
To you 3 brain surgeons, it’s much cheaper to lease now for the 3 months, as the cost is inclusive of everything!
We buy them for more than $25m each and we still have to pay for everything else for them and then they sit for 6 months collecting dust…. not a great investment and the county has already researched this…
Since the county pays the bills for the next 3 months, they only work in Los Angeles county, not anywhere’s else!
How do I know, I work for LA County Fire and I work logistics for Air Ops!
It is very expensive to keep renting these from Canada. I believe it’s roughly 30,000 a month and at this rate CA could have their own to fire our own fires. I think it makes sense. So governor when can we buy about oh say 6 of these?
Yes, especially now with all the advancing climate change, we have fire season all year round, not just in the Summer months! I think it would be a good investment! Was it a good idea for our astronauts to have to pay so much to Russia to hitch a ride to the International Space Station all the time? Craig probably thinks that we should keep doing that instead of making our own Craft to get it done! ? At some point, we have to invest in our future, and we just aren’t! We need to make sure Social Security is safe and effective for generations to come! We’re falling so far behind in every aspect, we’ll never catch up! More and more people, more neighborhoods and everything, and still we have to worry about having our power cut off on the worst days because the whole system is so antiquated. It can’t keep up! When will they ever address this? Pipes under ground everywhere that were placed there a hundred years ago. They’ll never be able to fix our infrastructure! All they will be able to do is do what they’re doing now, and fix/replace small areas that leak, or worse. Avoiding things and putting it on the next generations-how is that working for us? It’s sad and hard to believe in this day and age, we shine it on and forget about it! Things always eventually come to a head, and they will, and how will it be dealt with when the you-know-what hits the fan?
Better Late Than Never !
Instead of “The Train To Nowhere”, drop the train and buy a couple of these. They are infinitely more needed than Browns High Speed money disappearing act train.