Otto--great photos, BZ to the folks in the trench down at Excalibur.  Note the yellow markings on the DOD helo with the water bucket,  this is for the fire crews on the ground to help with directing the loads.   You might want to dig into the bureaucratic food fight that just went down in San Diego to allow the military to fly these missions.

FYI Thursday asked the Cal Fire Ops folks out at Gillespie Field (El Cajon CA, major staging base for fire aircraft and firefighters) if they are getting/using the UAV feeds, and same officials said this was being plugged into the tactical planning overnight for the next day's attack.  (Information will be 12+ hours old by the time the ground crews use it).  

The value of immediate,  real time EO and IR feeds from the UAV to the fire crews onscene seems to be lost here.  The Santa Anna winds showed that these fire fronts can move very quickly, propagating through fire prone areas at tens of miles an hour.     Fortunately, the winds have moderated and so perhaps the interest in doing this better next time.