B.C. company helping L.A. says fighting fire at night is a ‘game changer’

More strong winds are forecast for the Los Angeles area, triggering a Red Flag Warning for a large part of the region.

These warnings are issued by the National Weather Service when dangerous conditions are present that could lead to wildfire growth.

At least 24 people have been killed in the fires and thousands of homes and structures destroyed.

More crews from Canada are heading down to assist in the wildfire fight, including two from Alberta.

Wayne Coulson, CEO of Coulson Aviation, based on Vancouver Island said four of his aircraft are involved in the fight.

The company has four aircraft working in the L.A. basin, including three Chinooks capable of carrying 3,000 gallons of water and one intelligence helicopter, Coulson told Global News.

He said that through the Quick Reaction Force program, originally formed in 2019 by Orange County, they have fought more than 250 fires – more than half of those at night.

“The main focus has been for us is cleaning up both the Eaton fire, which we’ve been working on and the Palisades fire, cleaning those up as well,” Coulson said.

“So they’re there in hand. I would say the ground crews are doing a great job getting containment around that fire as we’re setting up for a, you know, a busy next few days here because we’re still in Red Flag Warning down here in the L.A. basin.”

Coulson said the biggest challenge for his crews and others is the wind.

“Clearly, there is two things that stand out in the fires here in L.A., one is the wind,” he said.

“The wind-driven fire at 80 plus miles an hour. You know, nobody was going to be able to stop that. And everybody just had to get the heck out of the way. And unless they have the heavy air attack to support the ground, these fires would have been much, much worse.”

Coulson said his planes have dropped hundreds of thousands of gallons of water on the fires, primarily at night.

“I think the big message that we’ve seen down here is flying at night has made a significant difference because I’m sure this would have been double in size if they didn’t have the air support between the heli tankers, between, you know, not only ourselves, but all the agency aircraft have been flying at night,” he added.

Coulson said they are more effective at night when the temperatures subside during the evening and the relative humidity goes up.

“And having 3,000 gallons at a time has made a big difference when supporting the ground firefighters.”

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