The decision by the U. S. Forest Service to discontinue having a full-service aircraft reload base at the Santa Maria Airport places local communities at greater risk of damage and possible loss of life. And this decision was based on misrepresentations from some Forest Service employees.

In a recent briefing document prepared by unnamed Forest Service employees, an attempt is made to defend the decision to downgrade the Santa Maria facility to call-when-needed. This document is so full of misrepresentations that it should be put up for a literary prize for fiction. Let?s take a look at some of these statements:

BCal Fire operates a full-service base at Paso Robles, 15 minutes away by air.C

The Santa Maria Airport (SMX) and the Paso Robles (PRB) Airport are 54 miles apart. There are three models of fire retardant-dropping aircraft the Forest Service contracts to operate out of either airport.

Of the three, only one is operated at speeds that would cover this distance in 15 minutes. The other two aircraft models would take closer to half an hour to cover this distance.

BDuring the past two years, it was not uncommon for air tankers to fuel at Paso Robles, and then load retardant at Santa Maria.C

This never happened. There were dozens of times in the past two years when aircraft operating out of PRB were sent to SMX when they needed both retardant and fuel, due to the inability of the PRB base to fuel aircraft in a timely manner. Not having the full service base at SMX removes initial attack capability, causing fires to get larger.

BBoth the fueling and the retardant loading can be accomplished at Paso Robles, thereby increasing cost-effectiveness, efficiency and timeliness delivering retardant to the fire.C

While both can be done at PRB, it can be done much quicker and more efficiently at SMX. During fires in the Monterey area, when a tanker operating out of Paso Robles needed both retardant and fuel, it would be sent to Santa Maria, rather than Paso Robles.

The turn times in Santa Maria were so fast for both retardant and fuel that the Santa Maria-serviced tanker would be back on the fire before a tanker that had left the fire at the same time to go to Paso Robles just for retardant.

Last August, a lightning fire broke out around 6 a.m. in Tepusquet Canyon. By 9:30 a.m. the Santa Maria Fire Base was in operation, and tanker aircraft were being dispatched. At least a dozen homes were in serious danger, so much so that the tankers were dropping retardant between the houses.

No homes were lost. Had the Santa Maria Fire Base not existed as a full-service base at the time, homes would have been lost and perhaps lives.

A couple of times in this briefing document it is mentioned that Bno firefighters lost employment because of the forest reorganization.C The primary difference between a full-service base and a call-when-needed base is that there is a minimal amount of onsite Forest Service staffing required between fires for a full-service base, and none between fires for a call-when-needed base.

So, how do you eliminate a manpower position and not eliminate any manpower? Even if there were some minimal overhead cost savings, it is more than offset by flying the aircraft the additional distance to PRB, at a cost of thousands of dollars per hour for the larger aircraft.

While I have a business at the Santa Maria Airport, I derive no income, direct or indirect, from the fire base. Having a business at the airport has allowed me to see how efficient the operations are, and what a clear reduction in response capabilities during the first few days of a fire reducing the base to on-call causes.

I believe elected officials should investigate this matter thoroughly. The Forest Service should be required to tell why it made this decision, with no input from the public, local government, local fire agencies, Vandenberg Air Force Base, the contractors supplying the aircraft and crews, etc.

The General Accounting Office should be brought in to look into how this action affects government costs, not just the Forest Service overhead, but the overall cost of a fire with this reduced initial-attack capability. Higher authorities in government need to review the decision to reduce the full-service base to call-when-needed. If the facts are as I have outlined here, the decision should be reversed.

Residents of the areas near Los Padres National Forest need to fully understand what this decision has done to them. Basically, it has more than doubled the time and distance it will take for aircraft to respond to fires in their area in the critical first few hours and days of a fire.

John Frank is a long-time tenant at the Santa Maria Public Airport.

April 21, 2009