Area politicians support recommendations in county's Station Fire report

The day after the county in a report on the Station Fire called for a "vastly different approach" in the way the U.S. Forest Service fights fires, the agency announced it will reconsider its policies. Area politicians supported taking legislative action to enact the recommendations. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Pasadena, lauded the report for bringing up questions about the way the Forest Service handles wildfires, especially after what he called the "fairly superficial" report released by the Forest Service on Friday. "I thought the county did a very good analysis and raised some important issues," Schiff said. "We may need to take action to implement some of the recommendations that they made." The Forest Service may consider reviewing one of the report's key recommendations: the agency's 20-year ban on overnight aerial water drops, said Jim Hubbard, deputy chief for the Forest Service. "We're looking at safety factors," Hubbard said. "We're looking at whether the technology has advanced enough that we feel comfortable." The Forest Service used to allow helicopters to make drops at night, but the agency banned the practice shortly after an accident in the Angeles National Forest in which two helicopters collided during a night operation, Hubbard said. Supervisor Michael Antonovich, a critic of the Forest Service's policies, said in a statement that night drops "would have prevented the Station Fire's rapid growth and mitigated its catastrophic toll." The county Fire Department allows night drops and has staff prepared to fly at all hours...read more