Cal Fire will receive two more CL-415 Super Scoopers from a Canadian non-profit to replace the one damaged Thursday by a drone strike as it was fighting the Palisades Fire, The War Zone has learned. This will take the total force of Super Scoopers currently available to Cal Fire from one to three. In addition, it is hoped that the aircraft, which has a hole in its left wing, will be back on line by early next week. The appearance of the drone in the firefighting area, despite restrictions, temporarily grounded all firefighting aircraft working that fire, as The War Zone was the first to report.
“The new planes will be sent in the middle of next week if the weather is good for flying,” Stephane Caron, spokesman for the Quebec-based SOPFEU non-profit, told us on Friday. At issue, he said, are the winds and snow often present in Canada during this time of year that can often keep aircraft grounded. The organization has eight CL-415s and six older CL-215s, Caron explained.
As for the damaged Super Scooper, LA County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone told reporters on Friday that the hopes the aircraft will be flying again on Monday.
“That Super Scooper will be prioritized for repair. 24/7,” he said.
Maintenance personnel from SOPFEU and De Havilland Aircraft, which built the plane, are on scene evaluating the damage and how it can be repaired, Caron said.
“The goal is to get the plane back [to California] by next week,” Caron explained. “That is what we hope for. It is what they told us they are able to do. But there are no guarantees. It is an airplane and needs to be fixed.”
“Specific questions about the incident and aircraft condition should be directed to the operator, however, De Havilland Canada is providing support as needed and has prioritized requests to the highest level to provide assistance and or parts to enable the operator to get the aircraft back in operation as soon as possible,” the company told us in a statement.
As The War Zone was the first to report, the damaged Super Scooper was one of two that Cal Fire currently leases. They are unique and highly valued assets with the ability to drop up to 1,600 gallons of water at a time and do so repeatedly on a single flight by scooping up more water from the ocean and lakes. Other fixed-wing firefighting aircraft of similar size and larger must land at an airport and be refilled, which takes a lot of time.
The fact that SOPFEU is providing two more Super Scoopers and hopes to have the damaged one back on line next week gives firefighters greater options, Chris Thomas, a spokesman assigned to the Palisades Fire, told us.
“We have six other fires and they could use them” elsewhere, Thomas said, adding that the two Super Scoopers currently under lease are assigned specifically to fighting the Palisades Fire.
Despite the plane being out of service, Cal Fire has 17 additional fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft that are working to fill the gap, Thomas pointed out. However, the fire grew by more than 10% overnight, to nearly 20,000 acres, and is only 8% contained.
“We fear that the death toll might rise,” Thomas cautioned.
To help prevent a future drone strike, the FBI is bringing in anti-drone equipment, Thomas told us. He was not informed on what kind. We reached out to the FBI for additional information. Thomas added that while the LA County Fire Department has its own anti-drone equipment that it deploys for events and other situations, it will not be used for this fire because of the FBI equipment. Thomas could not say if the county’s anti-drone equipment had previously been deployed for this fire or, if it wasn’t, why not. Usually this type of equipment provides awareness of drones in the sky, but has no means to take them down. You can read all about the issues with doing the latter in domestic airspace here.
The drone incident has sparked “a huge investigation” being led by the FBI, Thomas explained. “They are taking this extremely seriously.”
“Our federal partners behind the scenes are going to be implementing procedures to be able to follow drones in our two large fire areas,” Marrone told reporters on Friday. “And they will be able to identify who the operator of that drone is. The most important thing to know is that if you fly a drone at one of these brush fires, all aerial operations will be shut down. And we certainly don’t want to have that happen.”
The drone went into the firefighting area despite an FAA-ordered Temporary Flight Restriction (TFR) that runs through Jan. 24.
“It’s a federal crime, punishable by up to 12 months in prison, to interfere with firefighting efforts on public lands,” the FAA said in a statement. “Additionally, the FAA can impose a civil penalty of up to $75,000 against any drone pilot who interferes with wildfire suppression, law enforcement or emergency response operations when temporary flight restrictions (TFRs) are in place. The FAA treats these violations seriously and immediately considers swift enforcement action for these offenses. The FAA has not authorized anyone unaffiliated with the Los Angeles firefighting operations to fly drones in the TFRs.”
The pilots of the Super Scooper did not know they had been hit by a drone until landing at Van Nuys Airport, Marrone noted.
“It is unknown exactly what time this small drone hit the wing of our CL 415 Super Scooper aircraft that we currently have on contract from the Province of Quebec,” Marrone told reporters on Friday. After they landed, “the maintenance staff noticed that there was a fist-sized hole in the leading edge of the wing inboard of the landing light.”
While the temporary loss of the Super Scooper has placed an extra burden on firefighters, the fact that the fleet will now double is at least one silver lining in a horrific situation.
Please, whatever you do, keep your drones far away from active firefighting operations.
Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com