It is no surprise that after the recent Palisades fire someone came up with the idea to dust-off the tired old “you need the airport for disasters” meme from the 2014 Measure LC/D campaign, but switch from earthquakes to wildfires. What is both a surprise and a disappointment, is that the SMDP simply broadcast this new aviation lobby “Disaster-2.0” meme without attempt at balanced reporting. As a result, Scott Snowdon’s Feb 19th piece “The role SMO played during the wildfires” is highly misleading.
Back in the LC campaign days, the 1.0 meme was all about earthquakes, but it suffered from the embarrassing counter-factual that the airport has not played such a role, and indeed was shut entirely for 3 days following the 1994 Northridge quake. The Disaster-2.0 wildfire meme also suffers from counter-factuals, none of which are mentioned in the piece.
In his article Mr Snowdon selectively quotes CalFire Unit Chief Shane Littlefield who spoke at a recent NOMA meeting (youtube video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvfWLfM7bOU from 36:50 to 45:55).
Before we examine what Chief Littlefield said in detail, you will recall that the Palisades fire consisted of essentially two events each triggered by a Santa Ana wind event. The first and by far the most destructive Santa Ana event started on Tuesday January 7th. The winds began to die down late the following day, however, the fire continued to grow, and by Friday the 10th reached around 21,000 acres. The second Santa Ana event began late that evening, and as a result on the 11th the fire expanded quickly towards Mandeville Canyon growing to around 23,000 acres at the peak of firefighting efforts on the 19th, when around 5,600 firefighters were deployed.
Given all that, we can now parse what Chief Littlefield said when asked by the moderator about the role of Santa Monica Airport (SMO) in fighting the Palisades fire. He starts out by saying that during the first wind event Camarillo airport was the optimal place for Cal Fire to run operations out of. However on Saturday when the second wind event came in and changed direction, the 30 or so aircraft and helicopters using Camarillo had to be moved elsewhere for fear the wind speed might render them unable to take off. On that day they first “reached out” to Santa Monica Airport, and 5 helicopters out of 30 were parked there, 8 more followed the next day.
Let’s just pause here and recognize what the Chief said. He said that during the 4 days of the first event while 21,000 acres were burned, SMO, which was just 3 miles from the fire front, did not play a significant role in fighting the fires. The nearby fire fighting activity took place from Van Nuys and Camarillo. They only reached out to SMO on Saturday’s second Santa Ana event, and then only to find a place to park a fraction of their helicopters to avoid them being grounded at Camarillo. SMO plays no major role in fighting wildfires.
If you do a google search for videos of Van Nuys or Camarillo airport roles in fighting the Palisades fire you are spoiled for choice. If you do the same for “Santa Monica”, there are no hits. This despite SMO having one of the most active plane spotter communities around. There is a good reason for this.
First with its 3,500 ft runway SMO cannot host any of the water dropping fixed-wing aircraft (the CL-415 and C-130H need 4 and 5 thousand feet respectively). Secondly, the SMO runway takeoff trajectory intersects with that of LAX out to sea, so large or fast aircraft must be de-conflicted with LAX in order to take off. Obviously you don’t conduct the organized chaos of fighting fires by queuing up waiting for nearby LAX flights to leave. Lastly, the truth is SMO lacks the space and facilities needed for fighting wildfires. This is why all the local fire-fighting activity took place out of Van Nuys (12 miles from the front, 2 runways one 8,000ft) where Fire Station 114 is the headquarters of LAFD air operations, and Camarillo (34 miles from the front, 2 runways one 6,000ft). We can forget any idea of fixed wing aircraft playing a serious firefighting role at SMO, we’re just talking helicopters here.
The Chief then mentions that during the 9 day fight against the December 2024 Malibu Canyon Franklin Fire, SMO was used for small reconnaissance helicopters for 2 days. He also mentions similar small aircraft uses during the 2018 Malibu Woolsey fire. So SMO is just one of a number of smaller nearby airports conveniently located to launch spotter aircraft.
Next the Chief details how SMO was used after that Saturday. In summary it was as a transport hub for people going to meetings and to review damage nearby in the Palisades and Malibu. This actually makes perfect sense. SMO has a long history of use by people avoiding traffic. The Chief states that he used it for that purpose four times during the incident. But this use, while important, is hardly a rallying cry for “keep the airport” which is the singular and true purpose all aviation memes, regardless of their ‘cover’ story.
To operate helicopters and help in fighting wildfires, or any other emergency, all you need is a flat fenced off area with no obstructions and a fuel truck. You don’t need an airport!
To their credit the Business Park next to the airport provided much needed sleeping quarters for firefighters coming in from out of town during the Palisades fire. Throughout the entire event there were fire engines from far and wide parked in their lots. If asked they might well have allowed a parking lot to be fenced off for helicopter use.
Mr Snowden devotes much of his article to claiming the Disaster-2.0 meme is somehow relevant to the City’s on-going visioning process for a Great Park when the airport closes at the end of 2028. Therefore we should ask what, if any, impact should the disaster-2.0 meme have on the planning process?
The answer is simple: in the event the Business park won’t provide a fenced-off helicopter area for the next disaster, one of the park design options in the surveys was a “great lawn”, so we should make sure such a lawn has no trees and can be easily fenced-off. That’s it!
John Fairweather
Chair Measure LC Campaign
