at-the-water-cooler.com

Winds have been calm most of today, allowing firefighters to make headway, they have been heroic. Air resources have been of aid but in short supply. But the National Guard has aircraft and personal trained, willing and able. The only problem has been calfire, does not know how to work with other aircraft. Calfire has their way of doing air drops, not Arizona’s way or Nevada’s way or the National Guard’s way. And unless they have spotters and air traffic controllers and Calfire’s radios they believe it is dangerous to work with other teams. Well a congressional delegation spoke with them about their proprietary way to put out fires.

    WASHINGTON, Oct. 23 /PRNewswire/ -- San Diego County Representatives
Duncan Hunter, Brian Bilbray, and Darrell Issa will attend a Congressional
briefing tonight detailing efforts to fight San Diego County wildfires and
aid evacuees. Representatives from the offices of Rep. Bob Filner, Rep.
Susan Davis, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, and Sen. Barbara Boxer are also
scheduled to attend.
    Reps. Hunter, Bilbray, and Issa will have a media availability
following the briefing.
    What:   Office of Emergency Services (OES) Congressional Briefing on
            San Diego County Wildfires

    When:   October 23, 2007 at 9:00 PM (Pacific)

    Where:  OES Center
            5555 Overland Drive, Building 19
            San Diego, CA

So if you went to sleep early and the last thing you heard was it was going to take till November to get control of the fires … the situation may have changed again.

<update> 12 Noon 10-24-07

14 Military aircraft waiting, wind is calm, Weather forecast expects inland wind tomorrow. If the eastern edges of fires are not hit hard today fires will burn to the east tomorrow. Next change in weather would be cooling Saturday and Sunday.

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