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The National Guard team that rescued hundreds of people trapped by the Creek Fire over the weekend discussed the life-saving mission’s tense moments.<\/p>\n
Crews of the CH-47 Chinook and UH-60 Black Hawk said they took women and children out first as the flames continued to burn closer to the Mammoth Pool Reservoir in the Sierra National Forest.<\/p>\n
Eggs sends.<\/p>\n
California Army National Guard aircrews worked through the night Sept. 5, 2020, to rescue 214 trapped campers from a wildfire. <\/strong> More than 200 campers were trapped near a boat dock on Shaver Lake in California’s Fresno County over the Labor Day weekend, encircled by flames and a blinding wall of wildfire smoke.<\/p>\n Chief Warrant Officer 5 Joseph Rosamond, piloting a California Army National Guard CH-47 Chinook, had already made the decision to try to put his helicopter down close by the desperate campers.<\/p>\n So had CWO 5 Kipp Goding, pilot of a California Guard UH-60 Black Hawk, who had linked up with Rosamond’s aircraft and was trailing him to the scene, weaving through peaks rising to 7,000 feet and then dropping down to a valley leading to the dock.<\/p>\n “We were quickly running out of time,” Rosamond said.<\/p>\n Emergency crews on the ground from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire, radioed to Rosamond that it was too risky. The Creek Fire in the Sierra National Forest was out of control and they should put down at a nearby ranch miles away and wait for the smoke to clear, they were told.<\/p>\n “I was listening to the radio calls when the Chinook approached restricted airspace” near the lake, said Army Maj. Gen. David S. Baldwin, adjutant general of the California National Guard.<\/p>\n “Chief Rosamond told them, ‘Just tell us where the people are. We’re going to go get them,'” Baldwin said in a video conference call Monday with the aircrews and defense reporters.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nBy Richard Sisk<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n