Flames that tore through tinder-dry vegetation at Vandenberg Air Force Base took a huge toll including damaging 200 power poles, 16 miles of power lines, and 95 miles of communication cables six months ago.
Col. Chris Moss, 30th Space Wing commander, on Wednesday provided details about the Canyon Fire’s extensive damage and Vandenberg’s efforts to recover from the 12,500-acre blaze.
The fire sparked Sept. 17 and required heroic efforts before crews extinguished it, he said, recalling receiving phone calls alerting him to a seemingly small blaze but asking him to open the airfield immediately.
A colleague said simply, “This fire has the potential to get away from us,” spelling out firefighters’ race to stop flames at the top of a hill.
“What happens if we don’t?” Moss asked, only to receive the answer, “Sir, if we don’t, you’re going to lose South Base.”
“I said, ‘What does that mean lose South Base?’ He said, ‘It’s going to burn to the ground.” I said what part of South Base?
“He said, “All of it,’” Moss said.
Despite heroic efforts of firefighters, flames crested the hill, crossed a canyon to another hill and kept going, charring approximately 20 square miles before crews fully surrounded it.
The Canyon Fire was the largest of five blazes in nine days extinguished at the base by a force of 1,100 firefighters, 100 fire engines and 20 aircraft from throughout California and across the nation.
“Remarkably, we did not lose a single facility on this base,” Moss said, crediting the “unbelievable professionalism and dedication” of the firefighters.
A Ventura County firefighter, Ryan Osler, died en route to the fire when the water truck he was riding in flipped over at the roundabout on Highway 246 at Purisima Road.
But the time the fires were extinguished, crews created 62 miles of fire breaks on the base, Moss added.
With flames extinguished, personnel developed a nine-phase recovery plan so critical launches could resume.
The fire left 1,600 facilities without power and 67 required generators to fulfill their mission, Moss said.
Some 450 feet of water pipelines had to be replaced and 21 facilities need new paint.
“But we know that we are not back to where we were before that,” Moss said, adding quick repairs meant teams doing some “outstanding MacGyver work” to get systems operating again to support launches.
“But it’s not the way we want to run business from here on, so we have yet a lot of work to do to get us back to where we were in August, as opposed to September,” he said.
Moss did not reveal how the Canyon Fire started, and military officials have said the cause remains under investigation.
Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein visited Vandenberg several weeks ago and took an aerial tour above the burn area, Moss said.
“I didn’t truly understand the magnitude of what we could’ve lost until I saw it on that aerial tour,” Goldfien said. “The heroic actions of our firefighters, our ‘Dirt Boyz’ and all the folks who prepared for the moment when all their training and all of their preparation was required to save this national treasure called Vandenberg.”
— Noozhawk North County editor Janene Scully can be reached at jscully@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.