Santa Maria truck driver Rogelio Fernandez became one of the three civilians injured by the Gifford Fire on Aug. 1 while he transported oil on Highway 166.
“We think he ended up getting stuck in traffic or having to pause on the highway to get to safety,” Fernandez’s son Oscar Fernandez said. “We think that’s how he got injured. But we’re still not 100 percent sure because all we know is that someone called for a medical, like a helicopter, and they transported him to Marian hospital in Santa Maria.”
Fernandez, 59, sustained third-degree burns over 22 percent of his body on the day the fire started, covering his head, neck, arms, hands, upper back, and torso. Once he was stable, a helicopter transported Fernandez from Marian Regional Medical Center because the hospital doesn’t have a burn unit.
For the past two weeks, he’s been recovering at a hospital in Bakersfield. His daughter organized a GoFundMe campaign to help pay for medical costs.
“My mom got a call from my dad’s work saying they found his truck running and that he wasn’t near the truck,” Oscar said. “We didn’t know where he was at for like four, six hours.”
Nine firefighters were also injured in the Gifford Fire, the largest blaze in California so far this year. More than 2,400 personnel were still assigned to managing the fire as of Aug. 20 with the help of equipment that included six helicopters.
At the fire’s peak, Cal Fire and the U.S. Forest Service used 32 helicopters for tasks including mapping the flames that engulfed parts of San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties.
“They can do the perimeter of the fire and that will tell them exactly how many acres it is,” Gifford Fire Public Information Office Rich Eagan said. “They also have the infrared so they can detect any hot spots.”
Helicopters’ firefighting capabilities were tested a day after Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the addition of two Sikorsky S-70i Firehawk helicopters, making Cal Fire’s Firehawk fleet of 16 the largest in the world. Assistant Fire Chief Tom Swanson of the Cal Fire SLO County Fire Department told New Times that at least one Firehawk was used to fight the Gifford Fire, which came from Hollister Air Attack Base.
Cal Fire also used fixed-wing tankers and many Type 1 helicopters, according to Cal Fire’s SLO County Fire Capt. Ryan Grebe.
“We had at least one CF helicopter conducting helitorch operations,” Grebe said via email. “Most helicopters are used for water drops on fires, while others serve as rescue/EMS standby or as HELCO [helicopter coordinator] to coordinate large water-dropping helicopters.”
The helitorch helped fight fire with fire, setting a small number of backfires northwest of the flames. Carefully controlled by firefighters using a blowtorch on the Cal Fire helicopter, the backfires consumed combustible material like vegetation in the path of the growing wildfire. The process created a firebreak, which is a belt with nothing left to burn.
Cal Fire also used C-130 airtankers that can dump 4,000 gallons of retardant—a jump from older models that could release 3,000 gallons.
The state agency tapped into six night-flying helicopters based out of the Paso Robles Air Attack Base. Two Chinook helicopters armed with 2,300-gallon tanks pulled water from Santa Margarita Lake.
In a Facebook post, Los Padres National Forest said that a new night-flying aerial supervision helicopter helped with nighttime water drops carried out by firefighting helicopters.
“Aerial supervision pilots, commonly known as air tactical supervisors, communicate with firefighters on the ground and helicopters to deliver water and fire retardant to the fireline,” the Facebook post read.
Staffed by the U.S. Forest Service Pacific Southwest Region Helicopter Group, the H-508 helicopter entered service on Aug. 5 and is the first federal aircraft in California with such a capability.
Los Padres National Forest spokesperson Andrew Madsen told New Times that multiple fires over the last decade were handled using a night flying helicopter for the four southern national forests.
“In the overnight hours, the humidity levels recover and the marine influence drops temps and wind speeds,” Madsen said. “With the fire remaining relatively stable, using helos to drop water overnight can help to contain forward spread and address hot spots within the fire perimeter.” Δ
This article appears in Aug 21-31, 2025.