By Joe Saunders January 8, 2025 at 8:31am
Flying over an inferno, this pilot made it look easy.
As firefighters on the ground and in the air battle three blazes raging in Los Angeles County, a video posted to social media showed just how much skill is involved in taking on a natural catastrophe.
And in this pilot’s case, the aim was dead-on.
Amazing skill by this pilot to factor in the wind. https://t.co/Am8QTwIWQP
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) January 7, 2025
Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin re-posted the video from the X account of firevalleyphotoop, where it had picked up 1.8 million views by Wednesday morning.
“Amazing skill by this pilot to factor in the wind,” Melugin wrote.
The original post doesn’t describe exactly what the plane was dropping, but according to Reuters, firefighting aircraft are scooping up water from the Pacific Ocean and flying it over the three blazes to dump on the flames.
As the video showed, considering the wind conditions and smoke surrounding the California fires, that’s no easy task. But this pilot made it look that way.
And as the responses to the post showed, there was plenty of appreciation for it:
Calculated the wind perfectly. Hats off captain, beautiful drop
— Big Dave (@Dave58Big) January 8, 2025
So dangerous. Amazing.
— pnw working mom (@PNW_working_mom) January 8, 2025
Wow, impressive aiming with that strong wind. pic.twitter.com/3jBTZuS23G
— tucks (@tucks42) January 8, 2025
Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency for the area on Tuesday.
The wind is no small matter when it comes to the fires.
Are California’s environmental regulations responsible for at least some of the state’s disastrous fires?
The Santa Ana winds were gusting at nearly 100 mph on Tuesday, according to Fox Weather, feeding a major fire in the coastal Pacific Palisades region and two fires inland.
The fires are also being spread because of ground conditions after a dry December, according to Reuters.
The National Weather Service on Tuesday declared conditions “about as bad as it gets in terms of fire weather,” Reuters reported.
Firefighters and residents might expect some relief from the winds, which were expected to weaken Wednesday evening, according to Fox. But they are forecast to resume strength on Friday.
Joe has spent more than 30 years as a reporter, copy editor and metro desk editor in newsrooms in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Florida. He’s been with Liftable Media since 2015.
Joe has spent more than 30 years as a reporter, copy editor and metro editor in newsrooms in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Florida. He’s been with Liftable Media since 2015. Largely a product of Catholic schools, who discovered Ayn Rand in college, Joe is a lifelong newspaperman who learned enough about the trade to be skeptical of every word ever written. He was also lucky enough to have a job that didn’t need a printing press to do it.
Birthplace
Philadelphia
Nationality
American
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