After arrival of Super Scoopers, LA County fire officials tout preparedness for 2025 wildfire season
VAN NUYS, Calif. (KABC) -- With two newly arrived Super Scoopers serving as a backdrop, Los Angeles County Fire Department officials on Friday touted their preparedness for the 2025 wildfire season.
Speaking at the agency's annual aircraft media day at Van Nuys Airport, officials warned that this year's wildfire season could be marked by elevated fire danger.
The Super Scoopers, CL-415 firefighting planes named Québec 1 and Québec 2, arrived at the airport earlier this week.
Two CL-415s are sent annually to California from the Canadian province of Quebec, under a decades-old agreement between their respective governments.
"The forecast right now is that we're going to have slightly higher fire potential for the Southern California region, to include L.A. County," L.A. County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone said. "We don't know if we're going to have any of those really rare, extreme fire days that are the PDS days -- the Particularly Dangerous Situation -- those extreme red flags.
"We're going to be on alert for those," Marrone said. "If we do get them, L.A. County once again is going to augment our staffing, we're going to preposition our resources and we're going to be prepared in case fire strikes -- just like we were prepared on January 7th."
In late January, a Culver City man agreed to pay more than $65,000 in restitution for operating a drone that collided with a Super Scooper during the early days of the Palisades Fire.
Peter Akemann, 56, agreed to plead guilty to one count of unsafe operation of an unmanned aircraft for the Jan. 9 drone collision, which damaged the Canadian aircraft and took it out of commission for several days amid the devastating fire, according to federal prosecutors.
According to the plea agreement, Akemann admitted his reckless operation of the drone interfered with the firefighting aircraft's operations and "posed an imminent safety hazard" to the two-person crew.
