FALLBROOK, Calif. — People who live in the Fallbrook area are grateful a wildfire that started Friday, didn’t explode in size and destroy homes it was threatening. Fire officials tell CBS8 that a water tank, called a Rapid Aerial Water Supply, specifically built for helicopters to fight wildfires in rural San Diego is a reason for that success.
The permanent dedicated water tank can be used in water drops to fight wildfires within a 10-mile radius.
When the Garden Fire broke out Friday afternoon in Fallbrook, crews knew right away it had potential to be extremely dangerous.
“The helicopter firefighting resources recognized this was going to be an extended incident," North County Fire Protection District Fire Chief McReynolds says. "Potential for 100 acres with structures immediately threatened. Keep in mind that this was a fast-moving fire. It was day 4 of a multi-day Santa Ana event. It was very dry. We had residents evacuating. We had kids coming home from schools.”
Cal Fire Chief Tony Mecham agrees.
“We were really worried about this fire. It had a significant potential,” he says.
After they dropped the water they had, helicopters started searching for more water sources. And for the first time ever they were able to use the new dedicated Rapid Aerial Water Supply tank for helicopters fighting wildfires in San Diego County.
“We know we can depend on this," Mecham says. "It's not like a stock pond or golf course where we go and we fly there and we find out there's no water there and we're flying around hunting for a water source.”
This tank was built 2022 for $150,000 through a partnership between the North County Fire Protection District, Cal Fire, and the Rainbow Municipal Water District.
“Not something the water district usually handles but these are our customers," Jake Wiley, General Manager of the Rainbow Water District says. "So this is taking care of our customers and their properties. This was in an effort to support the aerial efforts and really that’s what these guys really focus on now because these fires are so fast moving.”
The tank pulls water from the water district’s tower beside it. Pilots can access 350-1000 gallons of water at a time in less than 3 minutes. And because it’s on a hilltop, the choppers save fuel by avoiding long hauls up from ponds or lakes at lower elevation.
“The really large helicopters, because they're limited where they fill, sometimes we're filling them all the way back to Lake Hodges," Mecham says. "So having something like this can really reduce our turn around times.
North County Fire Chief McReynolds says, “This time of year local ponds, stock ponds are dry because we are at the very end of our hot dry summer season. And so a lot of those natural waters have already dried up so to have an open air tank to be triggered from the air by the pilot that can be quickly refilled, it’s an incredibly valuable resource.”
As fire crews deal with fast-moving wildfires, every second counts. Water runs that take several minutes, can happen in a fraction of the time with this open top water tank. It helps stop fires before they burn out of control.
"This tank behind me was hit 35 times by helicopters that refilled their water supply Friday as the fire was burning," McReynolds says.
You can still see the burn scar up on the mountain and the red fire retardant, but no homes burned. And no one was hurt.
This Rapid Aerial Water Supply tank in Rainbow is the first of now two in all of San Diego County. The second one was recently installed in the San Marco area. Fire leaders would like to see them all over the county.
"Ideally if we could have one of these within 10 air miles across the entire county," Mecham says.