aujourd’hui<\/a>, d\u00e9taille les circonstances de la composante air de la lutte contre le feu. Il s’agit de l’inactivit\u00e9 de dizaines d’avions et d’h\u00e9licopt\u00e8res anti-feu, au moins dans les premi\u00e8res vingt-quatre heures de lutte contre le feu, au moment crucial o\u00f9 une intervention d\u00e9cid\u00e9e, essentiellement par moyens a\u00e9riens alors que les \u00e9l\u00e9ments terrestres ne sont pas encore regroup\u00e9s, peut juguler les d\u00e9parts d’incendie et contenir le sinistre. Cette circonstance est d’autant plus dommageable qu’il semble que cette intervention aurait pu avoir lieu avant que les vents tr\u00e8s forts qui ont aliment\u00e9 l’incendie ne se soient lev\u00e9s.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\tL’impression recueillie est celle d’un formidable imbroglio, o\u00f9 diverses autorit\u00e9s, celles des Gardes Nationales concern\u00e9es, celles de la lutte contre l’incendie, celles de l’Etat de Californie et du gouvernement f\u00e9d\u00e9ral, se t\u00e9lescopent, se contredisent, se freinent et se chamaillent, consultent le r\u00e8glement, signent des papiers. On d\u00e9couvre m\u00eame des interventions spontan\u00e9es de parlementaires de la Californie effar\u00e9s de ne pas voir les moyens a\u00e9riens mis en uvre et prenant sur eux d’ordonner des interventions.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tQuelques \u00e9l\u00e9ments de la d\u00e9p\u00eache AP. D’abord celui-ci, concernant les h\u00e9licopt\u00e8res:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\t\u00abThe first of the 15 or so fires started around midnight Saturday. By Sunday afternoon, fires were raging in Los Angeles, San Diego and Orange counties.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbAt the request of firefighters on the ground, at 4 p.m. Sunday the state Office of Emergency Services asked the National Guard to supply four helicopters. Under state rules, a California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection spotter must accompany each military and National Guard helicopter to coordinate water drops.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbThe spotters have 24 hours to report for duty, and it took nearly all that time for them and the National Guard crews to assemble. By the time they were ready to go, the winds had made it unsafe to fly.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbThe helicopters finally got off the ground Tuesday.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbMike Padilla, aviation chief for the forestry department, acknowledged the Guard’s helicopters were ready to fly before the spotters arrived. He said state officials were surprised.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbTypically we’re waiting for them to get crews, Padilla said.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbIn a conference call with reporters Thursday, state officials rejected the notion they were ill-prepared, noting that more than 20 helicopters and airplanes were stockpiled in Southern California ahead of the wildfires because of the danger of flames erupting.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbBut high winds after the fires began meant there was very little opportunity to fly, said the forestry department’s director, Ruben Grijalva.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbThis is not a resource shortage on those days, this is a weather-condition problem, he said.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbThat explanation doesn’t jibe with what U.S. Rep. Brian Bilbray said state officials told him Tuesday night. Bilbray, who represents parts of San Diego, and other lawmakers were informed that 19 Navy and Marine helicopters were ready to fly, some as early as Sunday, but didn’t take off because there were no state fire spotters to accompany the crews, said Bilbray’s spokesman, Kurt Bardella.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbAlarmed, Bilbray quickly helped broker an agreement to waive the spotter requirement, allowing flights to begin Wednesday.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbWe told them, You don’t want the public to be asking why these units weren’t flying while we had houses burning,’ Bilbray told the AP.<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\tDu c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la flotte des C-130 anti-feu mise en place en Californie par le Pentagone, la situation n’est pas meilleure, ni l’imbroglio plus facile \u00e0 d\u00e9nouer. C’est une somptueuse saga d’irresponsabilit\u00e9, de gaspillage, d’aveuglements divers et d’autant de mensonges, qui remonte beaucoup plus loin que l’incendie puisque les C-130 devraient \u00eatre pr\u00eats depuis dix ans et qu’ils ne le sont pas.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\t\u00abMore than a decade ago, Congress ordered replacement of the aging removable tanks for the military planes because of safety concerns and worries that they wouldn’t fit with new-model aircraft. California’s firefighting C-130 unit is one of four the Pentagon has positioned across the country to respond to fire disasters.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbNew tanks were designed, but they failed to fit into the latest C-130s. Designers were ordered back to the drawing board. Republican Rep. Elton Gallegly said Congress was assured the new tanks would be ready by 2003.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbFour years later, the U.S. Forest Service and Air Force have yet to approve the revised design. Air Force spokeswoman Capt. Paula Kurtz said technical and design difficulties have delayed the program.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbRohrabacher and Gallegly are angered by the delay, which has left no C-130s capable of fighting fires on the West Coast. The last of the older-model C-130s with an original tank was retired by the California National Guard last year.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbIt’s an absolute tragedy, an unacceptable tragedy, Gallegly said.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbThe situation meant that rather than deploying C-130s from inside the state, Schwarzenegger was forced to ask Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to call in the six remaining older C-130s from other states as far away as North Carolina.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbNone of them began fighting the fires until Wednesday afternoon.<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\tCes aventures rendent compte d’un \u00e9tat \u00e9pouvantable des structures de contr\u00f4le et de ma\u00eetrise de la s\u00e9curit\u00e9 publique, \u00e0 l’image du syst\u00e8me int\u00e9rieur am\u00e9ricaniste, d\u00e9labr\u00e9 et totalement inefficace; les comportements sont \u00e0 mesure, avec l’irresponsabilit\u00e9 et les positions corporatistes. Il appara\u00eet extraordinaire qu’aucune autorit\u00e9 centrale de lutte contre les incendies, contr\u00f4lant tous les moyens, n’ait \u00e9t\u00e9 mise en place en Californie, avec une veille d’intervention imm\u00e9diate d’unit\u00e9s a\u00e9riennes, dans un Etat o\u00f9 les incendies de for\u00eat sont r\u00e9guliers. Cette situation est \u00e0 comparer avec la situation en France, pays r\u00e9put\u00e9 comme r\u00e9trograde et paralys\u00e9 par son absence de r\u00e9forme, o\u00f9 les unit\u00e9s a\u00e9riennes de lutte contre le feu (bas\u00e9es \u00e0 Marignane, essentiellement sur hydravions Canadair) sont actives depuis le d\u00e9but des ann\u00e9es 1960, avec cette veille permanente qui permet l’intervention souvent imm\u00e9diate, qui interviennent dans toutes les zones fran\u00e7aises menac\u00e9es (de la Corse \u00e0 l’int\u00e9rieur des terres en Haute-Provence), aussi bien qu’en soutien de pays m\u00e9diterran\u00e9ens comme l’Espagne, l’Italie ou la Gr\u00e8ce.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tLes plaies du syst\u00e8me US apparaissent clairement avec cette absence d’une autorit\u00e9 centrale publique, la multiplication des pouvoirs, la contradiction des autorit\u00e9s, les conflits entre bureaucraties aussi bien que les interf\u00e9rences entre les diff\u00e9rents niveaux de pouvoir politique, leds gaspillages. Il semble que les grands feux de Californie soient en train de compl\u00e9ter l’\u00e9tat des lieux de la s\u00e9curit\u00e9 publique collective aux USA, apr\u00e8s la premi\u00e8re d\u00e9monstration de Katrina. La crise du syst\u00e8me de l’am\u00e9ricanisme a une responsabilit\u00e9 au moins aussi lourde que la crise climatique.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\tMis en ligne le 26 octobre 2007 \u00e0 17H47<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
La calamit\u00e9 qui frappe la Californie commence \u00e0 d\u00e9voiler ses dessous. Une longue analyse d’Associated Press, publi\u00e9e aujourd’hui, d\u00e9taille les circonstances de la composante air de la lutte contre le feu. Il s’agit de l’inactivit\u00e9 de dizaines d’avions et d’h\u00e9licopt\u00e8res anti-feu, au moins dans les premi\u00e8res vingt-quatre heures de lutte contre le feu, au moment… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3734,2623,2942,5786,2936,3916,2937,4153],"class_list":["post-69362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bloc-notes","tag-avions","tag-bureaucratie","tag-californie","tag-feu","tag-garde","tag-helicopteres","tag-nationale","tag-schwarzenegger"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69362\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}