Flying field Threatened by fire :(

[sprzout]

Just got news from my club, the Palomar RC Flyers - our flying field has been temporarily shut down due to the latest Southern California fire to break out.

The Lilac fire in Fallbrook/Bonsall area of North County San Diego, has burned over 500 acres at the 15 and 76 interchange and is spreading, with the fire being 0% contained.

Our field is on the Northeast corner of the 15/76 interchange; as you come up the 15 north from San Diego towards Temecula and Riverside County, you can see planes flying over the field during the day.

I'm hoping we HAVE a field come tomorrow...

 

[cranialrectosis]

From TO myself.

Good luck to you man.

 

[sprzout]

It's getting worse. Friends of mine and coworkers have been evacuated from their homes on the back side of Camp Pendleton. I hate to say this, but I hope the fire and the Santa Ana winds blow this fire northwest. While there's a lot of dry area up there, it's not going into homes...

 

[PsyBorg]

Keep in mind should the field get destroyed that the AMA has a program for starting, upgrading, or repairing fields and I believe there are 500 dollar grants they will give for these circumstances to AMA registered fields. Look it up on their site. I may be remembering details wrong but I did read about the program some where in all that mess.

 

[sprzout]

Keep in mind should the field get destroyed that the AMA has a program for starting, upgrading, or repairing fields and I believe there are 500 dollar grants they will give for these circumstances to AMA registered fields. Look it up on their site. I may be remembering details wrong but I did read about the program some where in all that mess.

We're actually fairly familiar with the grants, but mostly because our club is anticipating that the land owner is going to sell the land within the next year and ask us to vacate. There are new homes popping up behind and around our field, a college is getting set to put an extension about 1/4 mi. north of our field, and directly opposite the freeway from our field, some new apartments are set to go in on the hillside.

On a slightly better note, our field is still standing as of last update; however, we are not allowed to fly at this time as a TFR (Temporary Flight Restriction) has been put in place by the FAA limiting anything from 0 - 6000' in the area to be used by firefighting and military applications only, until Feb 8th (which I'm hoping will change and we'll get permission to fly sooner than that). I found out that we'd actually had scouting helicopters staging from our runway and field areas, looking for hot spots for the Lilac Fire. Makes sense when you've got road access and a 60" x 800' runway, with grass and brush cleared...

 

[AkimboGlueGuns]

Sorry to hear about that. Wild fires really suck. I hope everything turns out alright.