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California Wildfires: The Air Component

Aired October 31, 2003 - 14:04   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, like any modern warfare, the battles to turn back the brushfires have an air component. Paul Shakstad is a big part of that. When fires erupted north of Los Angeles, the L.A. City Fire chief pilot choreographed the ground attack from 1,000 feet up. He was helco, and now he's a welcome guest of LIVE FROM.
Paul, great to see you. And I know you're tired.

PAUL SHAKSTAD, CHIEF PILOT, L.A. CITY FIRE DEPT.: Good morning, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Tell me, when the call came through, the wildfires were in full force. How did you get into action?

SHAKSTAD: Well, we first got into the -- I was recalled in at about 11:00 on Sunday, and that was for the Simi Fire. And we organized some resources to make the initial air attack on the Simi Fire. At that particular point in time, there were no available resources, because of what's going on in Southern California. All the agencies were stretched beyond capacity and limits, and we were able to dispatch three water-dropping helicopters, and also the helicopter coordinator, the commander, outfit for which I was flying, and we directed the first airborne attack on the Simi Fire.

PHILLIPS: Paul, did you ever feel like you were making a difference? We were seeing the pictures. We were seeing these fires grow by the second. We also saw how your helos were up and running constantly, but it seems like they just kept growing. Did you get frustrated at any moment? Or did you keep thinking one step ahead, or fall back and plan again?

SHAKSTAD: Well, all the firefighters on -- I can hopefully speak for all the firefighters, we do make a difference. We're trained, programmed, to fight fires, make a difference, even, even sometimes in insurmountable odds. In terms of this fire, the fire load -- the brush was so thick, it was a wind-driven fire, and it was very, very difficult, and it was also a very, very large acreage, somewhere in the neighborhood of 5,000 to 6,000 acres initially being wind-driven, and pretty isolated steep canyons and draws, and also up next to urban interface. So there was a lot of ground companies on the fire. We had the Erickson (ph) air crane. That's capable of dropping 2,500 gallons of water a drop, and we had two of of our medium, or Belfour (ph) 12, helicopters on the flanks of the fire.

PHILLIPS: Now, Paul, you were up there, helco, and sort of orchestrating this dance in the air, trying to get to all the right places. You could see your fellow firefighters on the ground fighting these fires and these flames all around them. What was going through your mind? I mean, you were close air support, too. It was up to you to not only save homes, but keep these guys alive on the ground.

SHAKSTAD: Well, we work with the incident commander, the ground- based units and coordinate attacks. The initial attack was on the northern flank of the fire. We try to secure what we call an anchor point and work forward on the advancing -- or the hot flank of the fire. And we were -- we were making a little bit of progress, but not a lot of progress, and then we have -- we were called off of that. We had some homes threatened, and we assisted some of the ground units in protecting those homes.

But it was so much fire, so quick, so fast, that we were making a difference, but it was real slow going and what we end up doing, but it's just like being in battle, when your troops are being overrun, you have sometimes fallback and take a secondary position. And that's what we had done. Of course, our primary position would be saving of life and structures, and woe were called off -- we were spread very thin at that time, because a lot of the other resources were on other fires, and there just wasn't enough of the air resources to go around. It was very difficult position, and we worked very hard on that fire. And we were able to stop it. Three days later, the southeast advance of it at the city line just outside of Brown's Canyon.

PHILLIPS: Saving many lives and saving a lot of structures. Paul Shakstad, I know you've been airborne for 27 years now. It never seems to get old for you. We salute you, thank you for everything you did. We appreciate it.

SHAKSTAD: Well, thank you very much, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Chief pilot for L.A. City fire. Tough job. They pulled it off. That's for sure, for a number of days.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired October 31, 2003 - 14:04   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, like any modern warfare, the battles to turn back the brushfires have an air component. Paul Shakstad is a big part of that. When fires erupted north of Los Angeles, the L.A. City Fire chief pilot choreographed the ground attack from 1,000 feet up. He was helco, and now he's a welcome guest of LIVE FROM.
Paul, great to see you. And I know you're tired.

PAUL SHAKSTAD, CHIEF PILOT, L.A. CITY FIRE DEPT.: Good morning, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Tell me, when the call came through, the wildfires were in full force. How did you get into action?

SHAKSTAD: Well, we first got into the -- I was recalled in at about 11:00 on Sunday, and that was for the Simi Fire. And we organized some resources to make the initial air attack on the Simi Fire. At that particular point in time, there were no available resources, because of what's going on in Southern California. All the agencies were stretched beyond capacity and limits, and we were able to dispatch three water-dropping helicopters, and also the helicopter coordinator, the commander, outfit for which I was flying, and we directed the first airborne attack on the Simi Fire.

PHILLIPS: Paul, did you ever feel like you were making a difference? We were seeing the pictures. We were seeing these fires grow by the second. We also saw how your helos were up and running constantly, but it seems like they just kept growing. Did you get frustrated at any moment? Or did you keep thinking one step ahead, or fall back and plan again?

SHAKSTAD: Well, all the firefighters on -- I can hopefully speak for all the firefighters, we do make a difference. We're trained, programmed, to fight fires, make a difference, even, even sometimes in insurmountable odds. In terms of this fire, the fire load -- the brush was so thick, it was a wind-driven fire, and it was very, very difficult, and it was also a very, very large acreage, somewhere in the neighborhood of 5,000 to 6,000 acres initially being wind-driven, and pretty isolated steep canyons and draws, and also up next to urban interface. So there was a lot of ground companies on the fire. We had the Erickson (ph) air crane. That's capable of dropping 2,500 gallons of water a drop, and we had two of of our medium, or Belfour (ph) 12, helicopters on the flanks of the fire.

PHILLIPS: Now, Paul, you were up there, helco, and sort of orchestrating this dance in the air, trying to get to all the right places. You could see your fellow firefighters on the ground fighting these fires and these flames all around them. What was going through your mind? I mean, you were close air support, too. It was up to you to not only save homes, but keep these guys alive on the ground.

SHAKSTAD: Well, we work with the incident commander, the ground- based units and coordinate attacks. The initial attack was on the northern flank of the fire. We try to secure what we call an anchor point and work forward on the advancing -- or the hot flank of the fire. And we were -- we were making a little bit of progress, but not a lot of progress, and then we have -- we were called off of that. We had some homes threatened, and we assisted some of the ground units in protecting those homes.

But it was so much fire, so quick, so fast, that we were making a difference, but it was real slow going and what we end up doing, but it's just like being in battle, when your troops are being overrun, you have sometimes fallback and take a secondary position. And that's what we had done. Of course, our primary position would be saving of life and structures, and woe were called off -- we were spread very thin at that time, because a lot of the other resources were on other fires, and there just wasn't enough of the air resources to go around. It was very difficult position, and we worked very hard on that fire. And we were able to stop it. Three days later, the southeast advance of it at the city line just outside of Brown's Canyon.

PHILLIPS: Saving many lives and saving a lot of structures. Paul Shakstad, I know you've been airborne for 27 years now. It never seems to get old for you. We salute you, thank you for everything you did. We appreciate it.

SHAKSTAD: Well, thank you very much, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Chief pilot for L.A. City fire. Tough job. They pulled it off. That's for sure, for a number of days.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com