US Forest Service to allow night aerial firefighting in Southern California

The U.S. Forest Service will now allow helicopters to operate at night to fight potentially devastating Southern California wildfires like the 2009 Station Fire, federal lawmakers announced Thursday. A Government Accountability Office report last year found the use of night-flying aircraft could have allowed the Forest Service to control the Station Fire on the first night. That fire burned more than 160,000 acres, destroyed 89 homes and claimed the lives of two L.A. County firefighters. The Forest Service, which previously restricted firefighting operations to daylight hours, is now training and retrofitting helicopters for night-time use, according to a joint statement by Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Pasadena, Rep. Buck McKeon, R-Palmdale, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. "We will never know with certainty if night flying could have extinguished the Station Fire in those critical first hours, but I'm glad we will have a better chance in the future," Rep. Schiff, D-Pasadena, said in the statement. "This step today by the Forest Service is long overdue, but will provide an important new line of defense against fire for our neighborhoods."...more