When orange arms of flame reach out to touch the sky and the sickening roar of fire crackles over dry brush in remote canyons, fire attack planes swoop in for combat.
In the rough terrain along the U.S.-Mexico border, those planes come from the Ramona Airport, home of the Ramona Air Attack Base, one of the busiest fire attack centers in the West and the oldest in the nation.Nestled in the scrubby hills of northeast San Diego County studded with natural rock formations, the airport was built by the Navy in 1943 and became an air attack base in 1958.
"It's the perfect location for an airport in Southern California," said air attack officer Steve Butler of the California Department of Forestry. "It's out of the fog most of the time."
Despite a relatively sterling safety record, the air attack center 40 miles northeast of San Diego was the scene of a fatal collision in June 1995 - the first in at least 15 years - that brought safety concerns to the forefront.
On the morning of June 21, 1995, a twin-engine Beechcraft Baron collided with a DC-4 air tanker as the craft approached the Ramona Airport.
The collision killed all three crew members and showered burning metal onto two homes. One house was vacant and those inside the other escaped injury.
The DC-4 pilots were working for the U.S. Forest Service under contract. The Beechcraft Baron was owned by the Forest Service. They had been battling a 6,750-acre brush fire in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, 35 miles northeast of Ramona.
The National Transportation Safety Board found in June that the collision was caused by pilot error in landing. Since the crash, the Forest Service has agreed to stop using its standard 360-degree approaches at airports with no control towers, said NTSB senior investigator Don Llorente.
The Ramona Airport is not monitored by an air control tower, and neither are about two-thirds of the 19 firefighting tanker bases in California.
Pilots communicate by radio, notifying each other at takeoff and landing. In the case of the collision, the tanker used the wrong frequency to notify the Beechcraft when it was landing, the safety board determined.
San Diego County, which manages the airport and seven others, has taken steps to make the Ramona Airport safer. That includes hiring a full-time general manager and asking the Federal Aviation Administration for approval to install mobile towers that would be staffed by certified air traffic controllers.
That would buy time to build a permanent tower, which also must receive FAA approval, said airport manager Rick Jenkins.
"Many airports are far less busy and have towers and the FAA pays for it," he said.
Jenkins eventually wants to lengthen the airport runway by 1,900 feet. At its current 4,000 feet, it is too short for Forest Service air tankers to take off when they are filled with gas and water.
The Ramona Airport is home to the California Department of Forestry, which is responsible for 11/4 million acres in the region, and the U.S. Forest Service, which covers the nearby Cleveland National Forest.
The air attack base has one of the longest fire seasons in the nation, stretching from May 1 to December 1.
Fire crews average about 2,000 of the approximately 140,000 operations made from the Ramona Airport each year, Jenkins said.
Surrounded by undeveloped ranch and agricultural land in an oak-filled canyon, the 377-acre airport has become increasingly popular among recreational pilots and aviation enthusiasts.
"This used to be a sleepy little canyon, but it's not now," Jenkins said.
While the control tower issue is being worked out, a new weather tracking system will be installed to help itinerant pilots navigate in and out of the airport.
From a pilot's standpoint, Ramona is appealing because it has neither the fog that shrouds coastal airports nor the congestion found at urban airfields.
"It's a fantastic training environment," said Steve Washko, who owns a flight school at the airport. "It has many positive assets and predominately excellent weather is one. It's not one of the more congested airports in the area."