wildfire
A wildfire, forest fire, bushfire, wildland fire or rural fire is an unplanned, uncontrolled and unpredictable fire in an area of combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire may be more specifically identi ...
that burned on
Vandenberg Space Force Base
Vandenberg Space Force Base , previously Vandenberg Air Force Base, is a United States Space Force Base in Santa Barbara County, California. Established in 1941, Vandenberg Space Force Base is a space launch base, launching spacecraft from ...
in
Santa Barbara County
Santa Barbara County, California, officially the County of Santa Barbara, is located in Southern California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 448,229. The county seat is Santa Barbara, and the largest city is Santa Maria.
Santa Barba ...
,
California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
during September 2016. By the time the fire was contained on September 24, it had burned of land. Due to the nature of the activities that take place on the Base, there were a number of unique challenges posed during the fire including the presence of potentially hazardous materials.
The fire
The fire broke out September 17 and quickly grew to over . Due to the location of the fire, burning in a remote canyon on the southern half of the base, access was difficult for fire crews. On September 18 the fire jumped to over prompting evacuation warnings for homes on San Miguelito Canyon south of
Lompoc
Lompoc ( ; Chumash: ''Lum Poc'') is a city in Santa Barbara County, California. Located on the Central Coast, Lompoc has a population of 43,834 as of July 2021.
Lompoc has been inhabited for thousands of years by the Chumash people, who called ...
and east of the base. By mid-afternoon on September 19 the fire had grown to over and with no containment was continuing to burn with a moderate rate of spread.
As the fire continued to spread, firefighters were faced with a number of unique challenges. Base officials warned that there was possibly unexploded ordnance that was left over from the days when the base was used during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
and the
Korean War
, date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...
. By the morning of September 20, the fire had been estimated at in size with only 18% of the fire contained.
On September 21, a
Ventura County
Ventura County () is a County (United States), county in Southern California, the southern part of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the population was 843,843. The largest city is Oxnard, California ...
OES Oes or owes were metallic "O" shaped rings or eyelets sewn on to clothes and furnishing textiles for decorative effect in England and at the Elizabethan and Jacobean court. They were smaller than modern sequins.
Making and metals
Robert Sharp obta ...
water tender
A water tender is a type of firefighting apparatus that specialises in the transport of water from a water source to a fire scene.Highway 246 just outside Lompoc. The crash killed one firefighter and sent the second to the hospital with minor injuries. The individual was identified as engineer Ryan Osler.
The fire was fully contained on September 24 after burning .
Effects
A
United Launch Alliance
United Launch Alliance (ULA), legally United Launch Alliance, LLC, is an American spacecraft launch service provider that manufactures and operates a number of rocket vehicles that are capable of launching spacecraft into orbits around Earth, ...
Atlas V
Atlas V is an expendable launch system and the fifth major version in the Atlas launch vehicle family. It was originally designed by Lockheed Martin, now being operated by United Launch Alliance (ULA), a joint venture between Lockheed Mart ...
carrying the ''
WorldView-4
''WorldView-4'', previously known as ''GeoEye-2'', was a third generation commercial Earth observation satellite launched on 11 November 2016, at 18:30:33 UTC. The spacecraft was operated by DigitalGlobe. With a maximum resolution of , ''Wor ...
Vandenberg AFB Space Launch Complex 3
Space Launch Complex 3 (SLC-3) is a launch site at Vandenberg Space Force Base that consists of two separate launch pads. SLC-3E (East) is currently used by the Atlas V launch vehicle, while SLC-3W (West) has been demolished.
Launches from Vand ...
had to be delayed. According to the Emergency Operations Center commander, base procedures require firefighting crews to be standing by for every launch, thus the launch was delayed so that all resources could concentrate on the growing fire. While all fires at Vandenberg were contained by September 27, facilities and instrumentation needed to be surveyed for damage and, due to the delays, the launch did not occur until November 11, 2016.
The fire also caused widespread power outages in multiple facilities on the base including at least one
fire station
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A fire station (also called a fire house, fire hall, firemen's hall, or engine house) is a structure or other area for storing firefighting apparatuses such as fire engines and related vehicles, personal protective equipment, fire ...
which had to operate on generator power.
See also
*
2016 California wildfires
In 2016, a total of 7,349 fires had burned an area in California, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
Climatologists had predicted an extreme version of El Niño, known as a ''Super El Niño'', to occur du ...
InciWeb
InciWeb is an interagency all-risk incident Web information system, web information management system provided by the United States Forest Service released in 2004. It was originally developed for wildfire, wildland fire emergencies, but can be al ...