Saw video footage of .............

[DispatchDragon]

Its an amazing piece of kit - apparently they can configure it to set swath dimensions up to a mile long by 150yds wide I believe

Although it doesnt say judging by the conversation and the air to ground radio I would assume that video was taken by
firefighters - the scenery looks a bit like the mountains just east of Julian Calif (theyre always dyed red from retardant up there )


Leif

[Garry Russell]

Is that the same footage you saw on the TV Leif??

Garry

[DispatchDragon]

No thats new to me - however having lived in San Diego and spent alot of time in the Mountains immeadiatly east Its very
easy to recognise No theyve been showing remote footage of it all day on CNN/Foxnews etc etc - I wonder where Evergreens
much touted 747 tanker is???? ;-)

Leif

[TSR2]

Was there not a problem with that one Leif... some sort of over stressing? I may be talking sh1t3, but something rings a bell.

[Garry Russell]

I do recall mention of the programme being suspended due to some problem

What is was or if it was permenant I don't recall.

Garry

[Captain Pugwash]

yes your right garry, the 747 project was cancelled due to some thing or other. i was gob smacked last night when i saw Dc10 on tv last night. as for the size of aircraft being bigger than yours ( remark from some else ). well over here we have a lot more land and forrest and bush to deal with. even with these new aircraft, it shows that they still have problems dealing with the fires. i don't mind jokes being banted about, even i have a weird case of humour, but in this case it's not very funny. lots of people have lost their homes.

[Garry Russell]

I'm sure the comment was not intended to offend anypone.

There is of course victims in any such situations

It is difficult to comprehend the scale and the almost futile fight back of the very best of efforts due to the immense size of the situation. In the nightime shots on TV the blizzard of hot embers overwhelms the scale of the fire fighting. This of course is always there but only shows at night .

They are doing an amazing job tacking this .

It is hard, as I say to guage the scale, perhaps this will give some idea

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=511_1193242532

Garry

[DispatchDragon]

Just to give you an idea - the fires lines of the three biggest burns down in Socal cover 275 mils - lay that out on a map of the UK and see where it leaves you

Leif

Yes its a big damn country and yes they have some ego problems now and then but this is an incredible disaster
on a scale that I dont think anyone except our friends to the North and in Australia can understand = ie it Dwarfs the Greek wildfires and yet there have only been two fatalities so far - says alot for the Firefighters working the front lines

Sorry if I sound a bit raucous - but as I say my neighbor just went down to join the fight - hes been flying Hueys for USFS
fire fighting for 10 years plus and I have nothing but admiration for the man - I dont think I could do his job

[DaveB]

They reported this evening on the news here that the fires covered an area the size of Greater London. While that's not the entire UK, Greater London is a whole pile bigger than the 'traditional' bit we all think of and to imagine a fire of that size is incomprehensible to most of us (to me anyway) :o

ATB

DaveB :tab:

[DispatchDragon]

Sorry Dave didnt mean to harp on - I was trying to think of what 250 miles in a straight line would cover (from where to where) in the UK Its a huge piece of real estate - without relying on the media - and having lived in that part of the US and driven in those mountains east of San Diego theres a whole bunch of nothing but scrub and forest - the scary thing is that this time the
fire(s) have intruded into Highly populated areas (or if you wish vice versa) 15 years ago the area around Rancho Bernado and
El Cajon were just a bunch of empty canyons with the occasional ranch now they have been built into - everything South of Miramar was until recently open range for the US Navy's use. The area that runs from Rancho Bernado down through Arrowhead to Orange county was at one time again just empty canyons with some vacation homes - again its been densely populated so
what is happening now was going to happen sooner or later - Unfortunalty the Media makes a huge thing out of it....and in the end half a million people will go home - probably about 1 in 500 will find their home destroyed and they will have to rebuild, until the next time - Santa Ana winds and the climate havn't changed they've been there for 1000s of years , it just we started building in their path(s).

BTW the video footage is incredible flying with such a big damn aeroplane

Leif