SAN MARCOS — Cal Fire unveiled the newest addition to its firefighting toolbox in San Marcos this week, with the goal of better serving the area north of San Marcos Boulevard.
The HeloPod, a 5,000-gallon cistern in the Santa Fe Hills, serves as a high-capacity water source that allows helicopters to fill their water tanks while still in the air by sucking up water via a tube.
Helicopters save precious time when combating fires by filling their water tanks from the air with hundreds of gallons of water in just under a minute — four times faster than filling by landing. The pod then refills automatically with water from the district’s supply.
Cal Fire donated the HeloPod in a joint effort with the Vallecitos Water District and the city of San Marcos. The agencies saw the need for a water source to battle wildfires in the wildland-urban interface in the Santa Fe Hills, where homes back up directly onto wildlands.
“Between the three of us, we got together and made this a reality,” said Brent Pascua, Fire Captain with Cal Fire/San Diego County Fire. “This is going to greatly enhance the effectiveness of all aerial firefighting, by helping to protect people and their property.”
Leaders from Vallecitos, Cal Fire and the city of San Marcos celebrated the implementation of the HeloPod on Tuesday.
“The Vallecitos Water District, the City of San Marcos, San Marcos Fire, and Cal Fire have demonstrated our commitment to progress and partnership by providing the resources, expertise, people, and political will to achieve this benefit to our community. Today, we are marking an occasion of progress and partnership as much as we are celebrating the milestone in-service of the HeloPod,” said Vallecitos Board President Tiffany Boyd-Hodgson.
While there are plenty of water sources in the southern portion of the Vallecitos Water District — including Lake San Marcos, Discovery Lake, Southlake and Jack’s Pond — there are currently no firefighting water sources north of San Marcos Boulevard.
According to Pascua, the HeloPod provides a water source in the northern part of the district that helicopters can access with fewer obstacles than a public body of water.
“What’s nice about these is, they’re controlled, and we know the flight path in and flight path out,” Pascua said.
While fighting a 5- to 10-acre fire, helicopters may return to a water source up to 20 times to fill their tanks, Pascua said.
San Marcos Fire Marshal Jason Nailon noted that the city has an “aggressive” hazard abatement ordinance requiring homes to have a 150-foot clearance from wildlands. The HeloPod will further assist in preventing wildfires from reaching properties.
“This turnaround time that this HeloPod has is gonna help out with extinguishing those fires,” Nailon said.
CalFire has implemented a total of five HeloPods throughout the county and is planning to double that number in the future, Pascua said.
Besides Cal Fire, other agencies, including San Diego Gas & Electric and the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department, will also be able to use the HeloPod for aerial firefighting efforts.
