Vandenberg Air Force Base giving tour of fire recovery

Several fires broke out at Vandenberg Air Force Base last month, burning thousands of acres of land. Today, for the first time since those fires broke out, they’re inviting KCOY/KKFX/KEYT onto the base to get a look at their new task – recovering and getting things back to normal there.

Vandenberg officials are giving the tour to media by bus beginning at 2 pm to get an up-close look at that recovery effort. They’ve been assessing damages and cleaning up the mess these fires left behind since the fire was contained.

Last month, Vandenberg Air Force Base faced the largest wildfire in their history. The Canyon Fire damaged more than 12,000 acres – putting nearby neighborhoods on evacuation warnings. Other smaller nearby fires also sparked.

With the fires now extinguished, the base has transitioned from fire response to fire recovery.
Their first priority is to complete damage assessments of infrastructure, facilities, and range equipment.

They’re also assessing more than 200 miles of copper and fiber cables criss-cossing through the burned areas.

“Due to the damage that’s been done to the range and the fact that we’re still assessing the damage, all launch operations are put on hold at this time,” Lt. Colonel Alex Mignery said.

The Vandenberg Fire Department wanted to thank all the mutual aid that helped put out these fires.

From all over the state, actually we had some individuals that came all the way from Florida to help us out,” Vandenberg Fire Chief Clemente Marrero said.