A fleet of firefighting aircraft sits at the Santa Maria Public Airport where the state’s extreme fire weather has led to an unprecedented number of air resources positioned in Santa Barbara County in case of need. 

The U.S. Forest Service has reopened and pre-positioned aircraft at its Santa Maria Air Tanker Base where critical firefighting equipment stood ready Friday to respond. The state has seen extreme fire weather including especially dry vegetation and incredibly high winds.

Brian Sexton, Los Padres National Forest’s unit aviation officer, ticked off the lengthy list of aircraft deployed across Southern California as part of the firefighting effort for what he called an unprecedented number of air resources ready to help.

This strategy brought four scoopers, the unique looking aircraft that skim a lake to collect water then dropped on nearby fires, to Santa Maria. Those scoopers also have conducted some training runs at Lake Cachuma.

It’s not clear how long the buildup will last, although Forest Service personnel remain hopeful this weekend’s rain will put a dent in the fire danger. 

“It’s all weather dependent. If we get a lot of rain they may adjust the resources, but right now the plan is to keep what we have on,” Sexton said.

Typically, the Forest Service wants 2 inches of rain before declaring an end to fire danger with no talks yet about scaling back the firefighting force.  

“We’re keeping our fingers crossed with this next system, but we’re gearing up and planning for working all the way through, planning month by month,” Sexton said. 

The tanker base saw a fairly busy season in 2024 including the Lake Fire near the Santa Ynez Valley and other blazes around the state, said Alex Ihle, air tactical group supervisor of LPNF, who flew a recent mission for the Laguna Fire in Port Hueneme. 

“We’re here primarily as a surge support type capacity,” Ihle said. “If they end up with multiple ignitions down there, they’ll use their resources and then draw from us.”

Typically, the tanker base has minimal operations from late November into May as the rainy season eases fire danger.

This season’s low rainfall led to the tanker base operations resuming Jan. 9 as wind-driven fires erupted in Southern California. The Santa Maria tanker base became a staging site for South Ops, or the coordination hub for the USFS Southern California area. 

The buildup has meant the addition of approximately 50 personnel at the Santa Maria airport to help with parking, mixing retardant and other chores. 

Two tankers also sat on the ramp as of Friday after returning from the Hughes Fire near Castaic Lake with another expected Saturday. An air attack plane also remains ready to respond. All the aircraft come from different contractors. 

“Quite a bit of buildup here happening to support all of the offshore wind events and really the dry conditions that we’ve had across our forests,” Sexton said. 

The fuels, or chaparral and vegetation, remain critically dry, so one light rain system won’t be enough to end the danger, but can help lead to green grasses in areas now carpeted with brown grasses.

The air tanker base relocated to the Santa Maria airport from Goleta in 2007 and became a permanent base with four pits — three on the south side and one behind Santa Maria Fire Station 6 — for crews to load retardant on aircraft. They have the ability to accommodate multiple tankers simultaneously. 

The largest tanker, the DC-10, is able to hold 9,600 gallons of retardant, requires about 16 minutes for reloading with less time for smaller tankers. 

Ironically, the Forest Service had planned to spend the typically quiet winter months to complete some construction projects at the facility leased from the Central Coast Jet Center. 

“We were not planning on being activated right now,” Sexton said. 

Leased space in the upstairs area of the Jet Center hangar will provide offices for the tanker base’s permanent staff, a place for pilots when they’re between missions and a room for tanker base operations staff. 

It should be done by May or June — in time for the start of what once was known as the traditional start of fire season. 

“Whether or not we get out of fire season, we’ll see,” Sexton said. “We’re looking forward to that because it’s a much-needed change.”

“It’s been a long process in the making to get a permanent facility for us here,” Sexton said. 

Having the tanker base in Santa Maria has proven beneficial for multiple reasons including as an attraction for adult and child spectators drawn to the fence line to watch the action. 

“While the presence of the USFS air tanker base at SMX provides an important service to the region, it also provides the Airport District with revenue that supports the airport’s overall operation,” General Manager Martin Pehl said.