LOS ANGELES — Newly released records contradict a finding by the U.S. Forest Service that steep terrain prevented the agency from using aircraft to attack — and potentially contain — August’s Station fire just before it began raging out of control in a canyon area north of Los Angeles.
Experts on Forest Service tactics dispute the official conclusion that helicopters and tanker planes would have been ineffective because the area was too treacherous for ground crews to take advantage of aerial water dumps.
The Forest Service maintains that the aerial drops would have accomplished nothing. The agency also dismisses suggestions that its strategy was influenced by a memo issued three weeks before the fire that instructed forest supervisors to rein in costs. Arson is suspected in the blaze, which killed two firefighters.
