During the first hour of the Coastal fire — before it turned into a raging inferno that destroyed 20 ocean-view homes — only one Orange County Fire Authority helicopter fought the blaze, unassisted by sheriff’s water-dumping aircraft that sat idle and unready.
Although Orange County sheriff’s helicopters in the past could self-dispatch to such blazes whether or not they were called upon by fire authorities, a policy change in 2019 prohibited them from responding unless invited.
As a result, the sheriff’s air support unit removed the $459,000 water tanks from its two Huey aircraft, leaving them unprepared, unmanned or out-for-maintenance as homes burned May 11 in Laguna Niguel, said retired sheriff’s Sgt. Bill Fitzgerald, who ran the department’s aviation team.
Fitzgerald said each Huey helicopter could have responded from John Wayne Airport to the Coastal fire within 10 minutes. It took the OCFA helicopter 30 minutes to arrive, records show.
Sheriff’s officials say they could have reinstalled each water tank in less than an hour if requested. Fitzgerald, who has installed them, said it would more likely take about 90 minutes for each helicopter.
“To send only one (OCFA) helicopter … is negligent,” Fitzgerald said. “Waiting for a fire to develop, then deciding to install the belly tanks and calling in a pilot from home, is too late to prevent (houses) in Orange County from burning.”
‘That’s just crazy’
Ali Darian, whose home on Coronado Pointe was destroyed, said the sheriff’s Huey helicopters should have been prepared and shouldn’t have to wait for an invitation.
“That’s just crazy. … Why should they wait for an invitation? Fire doesn’t wait for an invitation,” said Darian, 63, a mortgage broker. “Fire spreads so fast. Minutes could have made a difference.”
Under the previous sheriff, Sandra Hutchens, the department’s water-dropping aircraft would have self-dispatched. If they had been ready when the Coastal fire erupted, each Huey could have dropped as much as 7,000 gallons of water in the first hour — while the fire was still small, Fitzgerald said.
Asked why the Sheriff’s Department changed its policy, spokeswoman Carrie Braun would only say the mandate was adopted with the cooperation of the Fire Authority.
OCFA officials said they did not request help from the sheriff’s water-dumping Huey helicopters, Duke 6 and Duke 7, for the Coastal fire because the county’s daily status report listed one copter as out for maintenance and the other as unmanned. Braun said the Huey helicopter was unmanned because the only pilot trained to fly it was flying a patrol helicopter to assist with evacuation announcements for the fire effort.
Air support from CalFire and other jurisdictions did not begin arriving until 4 p.m. — one hour, 16 minutes after the fire was first reported. By 7:35 p.m., 16 aircraft from as far away as Porterville were dropping water and retardant or providing reconnaissance, but it was too late to prevent the wind-whipped flames from marching up the hill and blazing through homes.
‘Air war’
The history of the sheriff’s firefighting helicopters is a complicated one.
The Sheriff’s Department, under Hutchens, had waded into the firefighting business around 2016. Sheriff’s helicopters began responding uninvited to fire calls and medical rescues, previously the exclusive domain of the Fire Authority. This triggered an “air war” between the two agencies that raged for about three years.
Bolstering the Sheriff’s Department’s stance was the 2017 Canyon 2 fire, which burned for eight days, charred 9,200 acres, destroyed 15 houses and 10 other structures, and displaced thousands of residents in Anaheim Hills and Tustin.
Investigations by the county and the OCFA concluded the Fire Authority essentially ignored early reports of flames on Oct. 9, 2017, and was too slow to send the needed resources to fight the fire.
Specifically, the investigations said OCFA officials downplayed a 911 call reporting flames in a canyon at 8:32 a.m. Instead of following protocol, which would require sending personnel and equipment to the scene, they directed firefighters at a station more than a mile away to look outside and report on what they saw.
Fitzgerald said that, because of the screw-ups, county officials in 2018 supported the sheriff’s policy of responding to fires immediately and without being called.
Water tanks removed
That is the policy that Sheriff Don Barnes’ administration changed after he took over the agency in January 2019. With that policy switch, the sheriff’s air support team removed the water tanks from the Huey helicopters to make them lighter and more fuel-efficient for search and rescues.
The lone aircraft sent by the sheriff to the Coastal fire, a patrol helicopter, was not equipped to drop water, but served as a fire spotter.
The sheriff’s helicopter appeared to be the first on the scene when the fire broke out about 2:44 p.m. on May 11. A water-dropper from the OCFA was immediately dispatched but didn’t arrive until 3:13 p.m., according to records and Fire Authority spokesman Matt Olson.
By 3:30 p.m., the fire had grown to three acres. This is the time that it would have been crucial to have the sheriff’s aircraft dousing the flames, Fitzgerald said.
But the removable water tanks, gathering dust at the airport, had become expensive “paper weights” instead of critical firefighting tools, he said.
Olson said the initial attack on the Coastal fire focused on ground crews and stopping the fire where it originated — in the flat part of the canyon where the winds and topography were not as extreme.
Despite those efforts, he said, using numerous engines and firefighters with hose lines around the fire in the base of the canyon and multiple helicopter water drops, the fire eventually spotted onto the hill.
Fixed-wing aircraft lay retardant lines on the vegetation in front of the homes before the fire reached those neighborhoods, Olson said. Engines arrived to the neighborhoods 45 minutes before the fire hit the homes, but strong winds and dry vegetation pushed embers past retardant lines and into the houses, Olson said.
Homeowner Darian said he watched the early stages of the fire, while it was still small, and noticed a lone helicopter flying above — not dropping any water. It most likely was the sheriff’s patrol copter. Fitzgerald said that but for the 2019 policy, the sheriff could have responded just as fast with a water-dumping Huey.
“Prior to the OCSD policy change, I had been on several fires in Orange County flying Duke 6 where I was the only helicopter dropping water for the first 30 minutes,” Fitzgerald said. “The change in policy by OCSD in 2019 was definitely not in the best interest of the people in Orange County.”