{"id":299288,"date":"2019-05-13T06:00:27","date_gmt":"2019-05-12T20:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=299288"},"modified":"2019-05-13T06:00:27","modified_gmt":"2019-05-12T20:00:27","slug":"wildfire-torches-450-acres-in-guam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wildfire-torches-450-acres-in-guam\/","title":{"rendered":"Wildfire torches 450 acres in Guam"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-299288 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-medium'><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon '>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wildfire-torches-450-acres-in-guam\/190509-n-tr604-0011\/'>190509-N-TR604-0011<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-299291'>\n\t\t\t\tGuam Fire Department firefighters battle a blaze from the ground as Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 25 provides a water drop in Santa Rita May 9. (Kenji Yagi)\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon '>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wildfire-torches-450-acres-in-guam\/190509-n-tr604-0009\/'>190509-N-TR604-0009<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-299290'>\n\t\t\t\tHelicopter Sea Combat Squadron 25 drops water on a fire in Santa Rita May 9. (Kenji Yagi)\n\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon '>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wildfire-torches-450-acres-in-guam\/190509-n-tr604-0004\/'>190509-N-TR604-0004<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-299289'>\n\t\t\t\tHelicopter Sea Combat Squadron 25 drops water on a fire in Santa Rita May 9. (Kenji Yagi)\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p><strong>ASAN, Guam<\/strong>\u2014Guam firefighters\u2014both local and federal\u2014were joined by personnel from Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 25, colloquially called Island Knights, last May 9 to fight a blaze that has already engulfed 450 acres of land along Cross Island Road in Santa Rita.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Joint Regions Marianas Fire and Emergency Services, the Guam Fire Department, and the Department of Agriculture Forestry Division provided ground firefighting near a brush fire that quickly spread and threatened the Naval Magazine and local homes in Santa Rita.<\/p>\n<p>HSC-25 was notified shortly after noon that the fire required the command\u2019s immediate assistance as the fire could not be contained by firefighters on the ground.<\/p>\n<p>Aircraft commander Lt. Nicklaus Gfeller and his crew assisted in successfully containing the fire by dropping 28,140 gallons of water during the six-hour mission.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur primary focus was to save the homes and structures in the fire\u2019s path,\u201d said Gfeller. \u201cThankfully Guam Fire was able to place a portable water reservoir in a nearby cul-de-sac so we could minimize time spent transporting water from the Fena Valley Reservoir in order to maximize the amount of water on the fire.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The incident was just the latest in an HSC-25\u2019s ongoing endeavor to help safeguard the local community and properties from fires.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is the third time in two months that we have been able to launch and save houses, and structures from devastation due to wildfires, said Cmdr. Frank Loforti, HSC-25 commanding officer. \u201cI am extremely proud of the squadron\u2019s ability to help protect the local community.\u00a0\u00a0We would not be able to support without the finest maintainers, support team, and aircrews in the fleet, and I couldn\u2019t be prouder to say that the squadron is always ready.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The fire was extinguished at approximately 10pm with no reports of structural damage or injuries to the community or first responders. HSC-25 provides a multi-mission rotary wing capability for units in the U.S. 7th Fleet area of operations and maintains a Guam-based 24-hour search and rescue and medical evacuation capability, directly supporting U.S. Coast Guard and Joint Region Marianas. HSC-25 is the Navy\u2019s only forward-deployed MH-60S expeditionary squadron. <strong>(JRM)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ASAN, Guam\u2014Guam firefighters\u2014both local and federal\u2014were joined by personnel from Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 25,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":299289,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[51],"class_list":["post-299288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pacific","tag-guam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299288\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}