Exactly one week ago, Sunday, October 26th, I awoke to a red room. I looked out the window and all was dark and crimson as though the earth had split open and was spilling her blood forth. I knew something was wrong. I got dressed and went down stairs and saw a black sky out my front door window. I could tell it was a terrible fire. Turning on the news, I found out the disturbing details. Several fires were burning in the east county. They were giving a home count and I think the deaths started to be announced. Having an appointment that morning, I traveled to mission valley. Not far to the north, was one of the fires. It was eerie and depressing seeing ash everywhere and knowing all those beautiful trees were burning down.

The following morning, I called my friend Benni and related to him that I didn’t think the firefighters were dealing with the fires effectively, having watched the preceding days’ fires get out of hand on the news. I asked him to do some research on the Internet regarding fighting fierce wild fires. He found an interesting article that spoke about a water-bomber plane that was very effective in fighting wild fires. I immediately went to the Internet address, www.waterbomber.com.

There I found out that this plane that could put out fires the size of ten football fields lined up end to end, in 15 seconds! I realized that this was what was needed for this fire. On the website was the contact information for the chief officers of that company. I decided to go-for-the-top and call the number of the president of the company, Tom Edmison. To my surprise instead of a secretary, I got right through to him! I introduced myself and told him I lived in San Diego, where the fires were. I then asked him if his planes could help these kinds of terrible wild fires, he said - it was no problem. He confirmed to me that the Ilyushin-76 'Waterbomber' would do it fast and efficiently and in fact, that’s what it is specially modified to do. He told me the plane could put out those fires, but had not been requested by anyone in America. The planes are in Russia, though it’s a Canadian company that administers the contracts. The president of the company is a Canadian, and he advised me to speak with Tom Robinson, the American representative of the company.

After my conversation I watched the TV news, mostly the local Fox TV. By this time, fires had spread into vast sheets of flames, interspersed from Mexico to Los Angeles. It was a nightmare! Flames were beginning to threaten even me, living here, near downtown San Diego. A vast evacuation was under way and I started thinking of the possessions that I would round up – it was that bad. A "Santa Ana" or devils-wind was upon us. Every year, in California, hot-dry winds blow from the deserts of Nevada and Arizona into California, bringing hot dry air and always fires. It’s a natural phenomenon which happens every September, October, and November and sometimes even into December. By the time it was evening on Monday, I was watching the worst fire to hit southern California in all the twenty-four years I have lived here. I was very disturbed and hardly slept that night.

The following morning, Tuesday, October 28th, Fox TV was interviewing Richard Jones, their local Station Manager. He was relating how his neighbors all lost their homes, and how he worried about his own. What caught my attention was when he said that he never saw any "tankers" or large planes, usually used to put out these fires! That triggered a thought in my mind - maybe there were no tankers being used at all! I decided to call up Fox and got through to him. I mentioned the water-bomber planes and asked him to help us. He said he would contact the company, Global Emergency Response, and see what the story was. I decided it was time that I called Tom Robinson, Chief Administrator of Global Emergency Response out of Virginia. I again was able to get through and asked if anyone from our government requested the Waterbomber planes, he told me - No. I asked him if his planes could function in the winds and horrible conditions that we were experiencing here, and told me - That’s what they’re meant for. I asked him if he had planes available for the California fires, he said - They had five planes and had two ready for California. Then I asked him how much would it cost the State of California for these two planes for a few days and he said, "Nothing". I said that he must be kidding! He said that all California would have to pay for was the fuel! You got to be kidding me, I told him. The use of the Waterbombers with crew for free! And no one from the United States Government had even requested it, let alone look into this solution. I was flabbergasted, it was an outrage!

I happen to be a volunteer for the Dennis Kucinich Campaign for President whom is running on the 2004 Democratic ticket. The fires sparked an idea that I should contact him on this matter as he is also a US Congressman. That Tuesday, I spoke to my friend David Harris, who is an organizer for the San Diego Region of the Kucinich Campaign and asked him how I could get through to Kucinich. He advised me to send this information to Dot Maver, Dennis’s National Campaign Manager. I composed an email to Maver with the details of the situation. The rest of the day, I eagerly awaited some form of confirmation from Kucinich but none was forthcoming. That evening I felt a great sense of defeat, as southern California burned – for the third day.

A picture is emerging here that is becoming increasingly disturbing, the more it comes into focus. That picture is this - there are people who have some vested interest in California burning, just as much as the arsonists desired to have it burn. These people are just as guilty of arson, as the creeps who actually threw the torches. These public officials, trusted by the citizens, were expected to employ all technical fire fighting equipment to put out the fire as fast as possible. Despite their position, they actually did more in their power to obstruct the fire’s termination. The US forest service official who denied an urgent request from Dave Weldon helicopter pilot as he witnessed the outbreak of fire near the Cleveland National Forest which is now totally destroyed! As the days pass more sordid details are emerging.

This was California’s’ 911. Although we did not suffer the huge loss of human life as New York did, the magnitude of the disaster equals it. Just as it was reported that stand down orders were given to NORAD during the 911 attack, someone gave stand down orders for our own tanker planes, preventing them from coming to our rescue. Gray Davis deserves his ouster. This was ultimately his responsibility and he remained seemingly clueless. Schwartzenegger, we were hoping would show some metal, but has proven to be as conveniently ignorant as Davis. The Head of the US Forrest Service has actually opposed the Russian Waterbomber service as he has done before. Legislation has been put in place that has forced people to take up very dangerous and disastrous measures to protecting the land. In fact, it seems to be contrary to protection of lives and property – the halting of fire-breaks, systematic destruction of property rights such as not allowing people to change the landscape around their homes, has all dramatically increased the risk of the dangerous spreading of fire outbreaks in the east county. All of these high-ranking government officials must be held responsible for the horrible situation that unnecessarily took place.

On Friday October 31st, I received an email from Congressman Kucinich’s Office. A letter had been faxed to President Bush requesting that he call for the Waterbomber planes from Russia to America. The letter was faxed out October 30th, 2003. I felt somewhat relieved that Dennis Kucinich had done all he could, he is not the President, and now it is in Bush’s hands.

Politicians and officials seem to appear to us as though they don’t understand how fires work – it destroys very fast. When a fire occurs, every second counts. But all the politicians that I saw on the news were quite relaxed, consoling homeowners who lost everything. It felt as though they were taking the easy route, marching around giving their best sympathetic expressions to the home owners instead doing real work like figuring out ways to stop this fire that was still burning homes, killing people and animals. The real soldiers were those out there fighting a war with mother-nature and her fury -the firefighters, some of whom had lost their lives.

Terrorists did hit California, and they accomplished great devastation. It is time we pay attention to who did what, and when, to punish those who made this happen, and those who let it happen. These people need to be brought to justice! There needs to be an accounting of who is responsible for over three-thousand homes lost, thousands of acres natural wild-life burned and those tens of innocent victims who lost their lives as well to the insidious measures that have been put into law. Is it ironic that these fires happened just when the congress was debating whether to pass Bush’s forest thinning legislation? Which now looks like a sure thing. These are truly dark times for all that love peace and nature. The lumber companies will have more cheap wood and people will think something good is being done to protect them and the forest.

The US forest service was the main obstacle to putting out the fires. The technology exists to protect our forests without cutting anything down, but a hypnotized, dumbed down public knows nothing about preserving the treasure of the natural beautiful world that God gave us. Instead they assume that the politicians and officials will take care of things for them.

California should own it’s own Ilyushin-76 'Waterbomber' planes. They should be on high alert during all Santa Ana conditions all filled and ready to take off in a moment’s notice. The forests should have water pipes strategy embedded in the ground for fire fighting and emergency irrigation. The forest floor needs to have rock dust applied to it to reinvigorate the sick and dying trees. The bark beetle is not killing the trees humans are with industrialization and global warming. The trees aren’t getting any water or food (minerals) so they grow weak and die a slow death and become food for the bugs and beetles. Thinning out the forest is the solution of people who care more about money and logging then the environment. The Earth is going through a great trauma now. Humans if they wanted to could save the precious little bit of nature and animals we have left

I hope with this article I can wake up more people, before the rest of what is left goes up in flames soon.


Eric Siegel

Eric@SacredEarth.org

http://sacredearth.org/cal_911_T.html