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@@MischaFellner Dang fire! Happy to hear from you. Glad you are well.

@@MischaFellner The Park Fire was no joke. The first two days were scary where I live but after that everything was north east of me. I was supposed to evacuate but I stayed with my donkey. My neighbors and I have solid, fire resistant properties. The Park Fire burned to within a mile of my house. The fire jumped across Cohasset Road at Rock Creek Road. I used to live in Cohasset a decade ago and the house I lived in burned. Cohasset is surreal now. Unbelievable. The Park Fire would not leave Forest Ranch alone! It kept charging in and out! I’m really glad you’re OK and you still have your house. Are you ready for winter yet like me?

2 feet long including the original tail. Absolutely. I’ve seen a Couple Giants. They like wood piles.

We never said the fire in Southern California was bigger. We never said they’re using plastic tanks in the forest. Wildland fire fighters do use artificial, open, water tanks that they set up if it makes their operation more efficient. They don’t only use natural water supplies. For example, the helicopters carrying the Bambi buckets in this video were dipping into an open water tank that they set up at the helicopter base in the airport. You just can’t see them dipping into the water tank because I filmed from the other side of the airport.

@michaellee9883 I also haven't heard any tactical calls for them to be set up. Didn't really mean to come across so harsh, but after the first 2 minutes with everything else that's going on out here right now...it really didn't sound like you guys knew what you were talking about. Lots of that going around. People looking for likes and views off of this fire that's on track to be the largest since 2018. If they're dipping into the plastic buckets... it means they're running out of available water sources or hitting spot fires on the west side.

​@michaellee9883 1:34 ... "you said the fires are bigger in LA?" ... "shhh...yeah, I'd believe it".

@@RippieFarmer I understand now. My friend Judy said, “they said the fire is bigger than LA.” Then I replied, “I believe it.” You’re right, I don’t know anything about airplanes and helicopters. The point of making this video was to show some love and respect to the firefighters. Overall, it’s a low quality video with bad audio and visual. I moved the camera around too much.

they do use portatanks on fires, usually at the helibase, but one fire i got sent in a water tender to keep several diptanks full so the helicopters could dip.. and we were on a USFS road in the middle of nowhere. they cant dip from just any water source , if theres anything remotely endangered or protected in the area, its off limits, same with retardant drops.

Making this video motivated me to research this stuff further. There’s dozens of aircraft and choppers out simultaneously. They fly extremely close together and are on a loop. After dumping fire retardant and or water on the edges of the fire they come back to the airport and land. Then they loop around for refueling of jet fuel and fire retardant then takeoff again. Any given helicopter or airplane is not at the airport for longer than five minutes before taking off again. It really is amazing. The air tanker airplanes and the chinook helicopters use the main part of the airport and the helicopters carrying the BAMBY buckets have their own separate base to the side of the main airport. As far as CAL FIRE order of operations and fighting catastrophic fires, you’d have to ask them. I think the first couple days they were focusing on preventing people from burning to death in their homes. I don’t think they started fighting the fire in earnest until day three. The same was true for the Camp Fire. The first couple days CAL FIRE was mostly doing evacuation and house protection.

Really? Interesting. I’ll have to look into that. About a decade ago I lived in Cohasset. I always thought that place was a flammable, death trap. I think more and more people are beginning to think seriously about land management out of necessity so their houses don’t burn down. I started with only one client in Butte Creek Canyon and now I’m up to a dozen.

Thank you. You’re right. I watched videos. They hold a lot of water! It looks like a waterfall when they do the belly drop.

That’s right. Army does helicopters.

I wish I was a Faller. I do run a chainsaw, swing an axe and do prescribed burns and burn piles for a living. I run my own land management business and perform fire safety work. I’m usually in Butte Creek Canyon or Magalia. I hardly ever get to fall anything of decent size. I mostly cut small, burnt stuff. There still are some huge pines around Paradise if you know where to look. There still are enormous Pondos around Sterling City.

Thank you for the information. I’ve seen those helicopters and buckets and thought they were big but I never thought they held 3000 gallons! I’ve seen a 2500 gallon water tank and never thought that those buckets were bigger than that. I cannot imagine the skill it must take to be able to fly with that kind of weights swinging around underneath you. The fire is so scary that every time someone gives more information it makes it feel a little bit less out of control. At least that’s the way it is for me. I hate not knowing what’s going on. So I want to thank you. And I have new admiration for those orange buckets look so little when they’re up in the sky. I’ve noticed it first thing in the morning there is a single fixed wing aircraft that is the first one out every time. That must be the one that you’re talking about. That makes a whole lot more sense. I could not figure out for the life of me why they were only going to send up a little tiny plane all by itself.

What a great reply! Making this video motivated me to research all the different airplanes and helicopters CAL FIRE uses to fight fires. The chinook helicopters carry the most water and have a hose that sucks up water from lakes as they hover just a few feet above. I watched videos of them dropping water around the edges of fires. They drop a ton of water! It’s like a waterfall! I’ve seen the spotter planes too! They are way up there!

What a great reply! Thank you for the information. Making this video motivated me to research all the different helicopters and airplanes that are used to fight fires. I was at the Chico airport. There’s a separate helicopter base to the side of the airport where they were dipping from. Do you know if the helicopters also refuel there? The air tankers that were using the main airport runway were on a loop. They weren’t at the airport for longer than five minutes then they were taking off again. The workers at the airport would hook them up to giant hoses that were connected to subterranean tanks to the side of the runways. That was for refueling right? Then the big silver tankers that were driving around refills the fire retardant. Did I get that right?

@@michaellee9883 welll the helitankers and smaller helicopters will land there at the helibase and refuel there. most have their own support vehicles including a fuel truck. so they do that over there. and no, the last part you have backwards, the trucks are the fuel, those big hoses are for the retardant. there is a row of big tanks there at chico, thats the retardant mixing area, i know nothing about how they do that though.im curious, have you ever seen the tankers making drops on a fire? if not, they make the drops to form a line or lines of retardant , they do this "outside the line", in this case the line is the active flame. they lay down the retardant so that its forms a long line of it all the way around the fire. its red as it can be seen on the ground so the pilots can see it. they will "tag on to 89s(T89, an S2T out of grass valley) last drop and carry it over the top" over the top would be in reference to a ridge top or something. so 89 would have been the last plane to have made a drop, this next pilot would start his or her drop before where 89s red line is, so it "tags" it, in other words, connects to it, so there is not a gap, or untreated trees or grass etc. use broadcastify, go to california,butte, and then find the audio feed that says air tactics, open that and you should hear some of what i was talking about, today they had lead 50 showing the way, he/she creates a puff of smoke, the tanker is supposed , in perfect conditions, fly into the puff, as soon as he/she does, they push the release button. if you dont know, the retardant doesnt put the fire out as many people believe. the lines are built sometimes (i could be off base here as its been since 1994 that ive been on a fire, but some things dont change much) as far out as 1/4 to 1/2 mile from the fire, and when they do that, and have enough tankers available they will double and triple the width of the line of retardant. but thats when a fire has slowed or they have the flanks covered, they will go out in front of the fire and build really wide retardant lines so that it may slow the fire when it gets there,, or if hearing it on the radio, you may hear something like "knock the heat out of the head". but you might hear that, or will, if the fire is really intense and torching up through the trees or doing whats called crowning, and heading to a bunch of houses or a town, the air attack will tell a tanker directly,or tell the lead to " go direct and knock the heat out of the head". thats about the only time retardant is ever dropped on the active flames. retardant isnt a suppression tool, but its used as its name references.. to retard the forward progress of the fire. the stuff will stick to anything and everything, on a yellow fire fighting uniform (turnouts) it becomes pink. it can either be a mark of pride, or the basis of a joke..lol. but my point, it sticks to the vegetation and coats it, so when the fire gets there, even if dried, it has a hard time catching whatever is there on fire.an example , i was doing structure protection once in the 80s, this house sat on the top of a cliff basically, wasnt straight down, but damned near, covered in pines and thick brush, the fire was off to our right, but suddenly there was a wall of fire on us, came from below us, and we were in the houses driveway, suddenly it was there, two tankers appeared and covered us in retardant. i still think thats what saved our lives, and the house, first thing we did was set up a 2 1/2" line and started hosing the retardant off the house while we used the reelines to knock down and flame around us. and ya know what? the home owner sued the state, CDF (what cal fire used to be known as) my department, a neighboring department as they had a crew with us, and each of us firefighters as individuals because his house and deck had retardant on them. one of my guys had a video camera on him at the time and was videoing the tankers as they passed where we were, and he got the wall of flame,and the tanker drops, then heard us yelling etc about how that saved our butts etc.. our lawyers showed that,,, and that was the end of the trials.. right vthere and then. much more to it, but i dont understand that stuff..lol

Oh yeah. The National Guard has been deployed. Firefighters are coming in from everywhere. Texas sent hundreds of firefighters to help.

Boron

You’d have to ask Cal fire. They also have heavy machinery, bulldozers and stuff like that to move dirt. The national guard has heavy machinery as well.

@@MtnMike-ok3ss Thank you

Good idea. I’ll send it to him.

@@michaellee9883. Brian Dahle as well. Good luck to you all out there-I’m in Sierra County.

Lilly white...

They’re heroes. Cal fire actively recruits former military, especially, from the United States Army and Air Force.

That’s exactly right. Cooler weather now which is helping the firefighters. 12% containment.

That is exactly right. PG&E was found guilty on 88 counts of negligent homicide in a court of law for the Camp Fire. I do fire safety work in Butte Creek Canyon, and a lot of my clients still have not received their PG&E settlement money. It’s been almost 6 years.

@@michaellee9883 thanks for your reply . No excuse some people have not received the money and it will be only 85 cents to the dollar. More than likely you have viewed the Fire Power Money videos by ABC10. Nice to see you do work in Butte county I am sure you know that part of the reason Chico did not burn in the Camp Fire,is a dirt line and black line was in place on the grassland north east of Chico where the subdivisions end. This stopped the fire from coming down the hill and going into Chico. Do you know if they backfired that area during the camp fire? I live in Humboldt droned a lot of Paradise talked to a lot if folks who lost everything. I spoke to CalFire about the need to maintain the large area of open land North of Chico so it will serve as a major easily maintained fuel break to keep Chico safe if and when another fire starts in Paradise. Stay strong.

@@dobsonimages Interesting. I live north east of Chico. Are you familiar with the Vina Plain? That is the large swath of land in my video that you see before the hills, canyons and mountains start. It’s mostly lava rock. It serves as a great fire break. I never knew that was done on purpose. Awesome! I don’t know about backfires around Chico but they were set in Butte Creek Canyon by CAL FIRE. I have one client that credits those backfires as saving their home.

Cal fire has quick and easy access to the back of my property. I’d let them do whatever they think needs to be done.

I’ve been thinking about it. I love where I live though. A lot of people have already left.

@@michaellee9883 Seriously is there some way for all of you to make perimeter fire breaks there Does anyone have a tractor seems like that would be the best and quickest defense, is it doable or no?

I agree. California needs to get tougher on crime.

There seems to be an unending supply of lunatic, mentally ill, drug addled, criminals and homeless people in CA nowadays. It’s like there’s a huge factory pumping them out constantly.

Good point. I’m not used to this many people watching my videos. Usually, I’m lucky to get 100 views, mostly from my mom.

Fifth generation Californian! Impressive. I’m third generation. When did your relatives first move to California? Did they live in Chico?

@@michaellee9883 , My family came in a couple of ways. One was a whaler. One traversed the isthmus of Panama. Another came around the horn as a passenger. They all settled in San Francisco and Marin. It is a long story but part of the family got the liquor license for the area in 1848. The other part of the family owned lots of real estate before the Gold Rush. The property in downtown Chico was bought as a wedding gift for a bride so she would always have independent income. It went down the generations and is now mine to keep in good condition for my daughter. The Society of California Pioneers is a great organization for families who were in California before 1949.

Make California Great Again. Law and order. Build the wall. Secure our southern border. Bring our factories and manufacturing jobs home.

Shame on you for having no idea what you're talking about.

@@boblatkey7160 how long have you lived in California and how old are you?

@@boblatkey7160agree.

I agree. It’s going to be a massive undertaking to get the forests, mountains,oak woodland, chaparral and grasslands of California in proper shape. I think we should use the military. It’s that big of a job.

Thank you for your kind words. I think your friends will be OK. The weather has been much cooler the past two days and the wind is not as vicious. This has allowed firefighters to reach 12% containment. The park fire is also moving to the north. It is now centered in Tehama and Lassen counties. The fire is moving away from Chico, Cohasset, Forest Ranch, Centerville, Magalia and Paradise.

Butte County people are tough as nails. So is the wildlife. We will get through this. Butte Strong.