{"id":17671,"date":"2025-10-22T11:52:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T11:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/17671\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T11:52:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T11:52:09","slug":"county-in-southern-california-signs-off-on-new-night-flying-helicopter-to-fight-wildfires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/17671\/","title":{"rendered":"County in Southern California signs off on new night flying helicopter to fight wildfires"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img width=\"300\" height=\"169\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Screenshot-2025-10-21-190349-e1761098677692-300x169.png\" class=\"attachment-medium size-medium wp-image-404772\" alt=\"\"   loading=\"eager\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\"\/>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>VIDEO: San Diego County is going to be able to fight wildfires at any time of day.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen the sun sets, we are dependent on outside area helicopters to come into San Diego County,\u201d Chief Tony Mecham, Cal Fire &amp; San Diego County Fire, said.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s all thanks to a new resource approved by the county board of supervisors.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor the first time, the addition of this helicopter will provide 24-hour wildland firefighting coverage,\u201d Mecham said.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a new $38 million helicopter called a Sikorsky S-70 Firehawk that can do those vital water drops even when the sun\u2019s not out.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis allows us 24 hours of the day to have aircraft flying and hopefully keep them when they\u2019re small,\u201d Mecham said.<\/p>\n<p>The aircraft can carry 1,000 gallons of water per drop, nearly triple the existing aircraft\u2019s capacity, according to the County.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s really an opportune time for us in the shadows, in the evening and the early morning hours, to get these aircraft up,\u201d Mecham said.<\/p>\n<p>KGTV ABC 10 San Diego<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"VIDEO: San Diego County is going to be able to fight wildfires at any time of day. \u201cWhen&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17672,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,15102],"class_list":["post-17671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-wildland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}