by Jason Wells
Pasadena Sun
The U.S. Forest Service did not use all of the water-dropping aircraft at its disposal as the 2009 Station fire spread quickly across the Angeles National Forest the first night of the blaze, but it’s unclear whether doing so would have made a difference, according to a draft federal audit released on Friday.
The report by the Government Accountability Office — requested a year ago by members of Congress, including Rep.Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) — cited a lack of clarity in firefighting procedures that contributed to what many critics have said was an insufficient response in the early stages of the massive blaze.
Schiff has been especially critical of the Forest Service, calling its ongoing internal review of nighttime flight policies unacceptably slow and a “terrible indictment” of the agency.
Reached by cell phone while traveling in Montana on Friday, Tom Harbor, national director of fire and aviation management for the U.S. Forest Service, said his agency was taking a deliberate and thorough approach to re-evaluating a nighttime flight ban that many critics argued allowed the fire to rage out of control.
