Governor and NASA Highlight Infrared Scanning Technology Helping to Fight California’s Wildfires

GOVERNOR SCHWARZENEGGER: Good morning, everybody. First of all, let me just say thank you very much to Dr. Worden and Steve Hipskind for the wonderful tour that we have taken just now, a very educational tour. I want to also thank Chief Walters for being here today, who has been our champion in fighting the fires. And I want to also thank Tom Horiama -- no, Morimiya (phonetic), who is with the OES and then Michael Freilich from NASA, I want to thank him also very much.

I'm here today to just look at this drone, which is another way of helping us fight our fires. I've been talking a lot in these months since the fires began about how important it is that we coordinate the state, local and the federal government's efforts. We talked about, also at great length, of how important the firefighters have been, that we have, without any doubt, the best firefighters in the world and they have been doing an extraordinary job fighting those wildfires. I cannot say enough about their bravery and also about their skills and their hard work and, like I said, we want to thank them for their great effort.

We want to also thank the federal government, which has been very instrumental in helping us in fighting those fires. They have been great partners and just to show you, 80 percent of the federal resources in firefighting is out here, they're out here in California. So we have gotten help from every department and from the Bush administration, from the White House and all the way down to different departments, so we want to thank them also and also local government officials and local firefighting, the chiefs and everyone.

But the one thing that we haven't really talked about is this great effort of the drones and so it is great to be here today at NASA at the NASA Ames Research Center to see one of the most exciting new weapons in our firefighting arsenal. The NASA drone is really a spectacular development and I want to thank NASA for inviting me here for this fascinating tour and this educational tour and also for pitching in with all the other agencies, the federal agencies, to help us put out those fires.

It is crucial when you are attacking these fires to use your personnel and your equipment wisely and to use them, especially, at the right time and at the right place. That will dramatically increase our likelihood of success and this has happened in these last few weeks.

And NASA, the NASA drone, is now assisting us and is one of the best tools to help make that happen. No wonder that they call it Ikhana, which in Native American means intelligent and aware. Regardless of how thick the smoke is, or how hot the fire, Ikhana infrared satellite imaging technology tells us in real time exactly what is happening on the ground and I think this technology has been utilized very well. Data gets then transmitted directly to the commanders in the field so that they can deploy resources wherever necessary.

That is always important, especially when you have that many fires, as we have had in this past month. Just last July 8th I was told Ikhana flew nine and a half hours and was a superstar, because images from the drone revealed intense heat at the bottom of a canyon on the east side of Paradise in Butte County. And strong winds were expected overnight, so the chiefs and the commanders put those two things together and saw big dangers and so they moved very quickly equipment and personnel to the west side of the fire in order to keep it from blowing into the town and they also evacuated 10,000 people as quickly as possible. And because of this great effort lives were saved and structures were saved. I'm very happy to say that the evacuation order was lifted now and the people are returning back to their homes safely.

Ikhana was also providing valuable information when traditional firefighting aircraft were grounded due to heavy smoke. So this unmanned plane is a true lifesaver and I again want to thank NASA for putting his vehicle into action and we want to thank them for their great, great work.

Now, I think it is important to know also that, even though we get all this terrific help here in California to put out those fires but California needs more resources, there's no two ways about it. And I think that we have to recognize the fact, as I have talked about to Chief Walters many times, that we don't have a traditional fire season anymore, that now fire season is all year-round. This is why we need more resources and that's why in my budget proposal I included the Emergency Response Initiative. It is very important that the legislators, when they pass the budget, they approve this initiative, because that will give us extra financial help to get the resources that we need, if it's extra fire trucks or personnel or extra aircraft, if it is helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft and so on. So we need that in order to help put out our fires.

Of course, we are spending right now a lot of money on putting out those fires. And the bad news is that we are spending all this money and we don't even have a budget yet. I presented my May Revise budget on May 14th, which was the constitutional deadline for me. We made that date exactly. And, of course, now we are one month over the constitutional deadline when the legislators ought to present their budget. The deadline was June 15th and now we are in the middle of July.

And we have had many meetings with the legislative leaders this past week, we are going to have continuous meetings this week. I'm going to continue putting the pressure on them to let them know how important it is that we have a budget. I will continue doing everything I can to work with them, because I know it's very difficult, a lot of moving parts. But I think the legislators need to come together and present its budget proposal as quickly as possible. I hope that they're doing it this week, because the people of California deserve nothing less.

So, thank you very much. I will be answering some questions afterwards. And now I would like to bring out Dr. Worden to say a few words about this great mission. Please.

DR. WORDEN: Good morning. On behalf of NASA, the three NASA centers in California, I want to thank Governor Schwarzenegger for visiting us today. We really appreciate the strong leadership shown by the Governor and all the state's leadership in developing high technology, particularly the Governor's support of high technology industries, many of whom are located here in Silicon Valley.

NASA is delighted to be able to help provide critical information to help firefighters battle the numerous wildfires raging throughout the state. As you may have heard, the Ikhana, a NASA Predator B aircraft adapted for civilian research, carried a NASA infrared scanning sensor developed here at AMES on flights over much of California this last week, gathering information to help fight more than 300 wildfires currently burning within the state.

I'd like to point out that two of NASA's three research centers in California; the Ames Research Center here at Moffett Field and the Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, along with NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, are each playing vital roles in this effort. We're also working with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, the Governor's Office of Emergency Services and the National Interagency Fire Center to help fight these numerous wildfires. This cooperative effort is a great example of how the federal government and the state are working together andwe're proud to be part of it.

So, thanks again for coming to see us, Governor. It's been a pleasure showing you how we can share our high technology and expertise to help California with its firefighting efforts and in so doing save lives. We look forward to working with you in the future.

Now, I have -- now that you're a NASA guy, I've got a hat here to go with it.

GOVERNOR SCHWARZENEGGER: Thank you very much.

DR. WORDEN: Once again, thanks for visiting us, Governor. Thanks for your leadership.

GOVERNOR SCHWARZENEGGER: Thank you. Thank you very much.

DR. WORDEN: Governor, we'd also like to give you this Ikhana patch to go with your hat.

GOVERNOR SCHWARZENEGGER: Oh, thank you. Appreciate it very much. Thank you. Chief, do you want to say a few words about this great technology?

CHIEF WALTERS: I would.

GOVERNOR SCHWARZENEGGER: Please.

CHIEF WALTERS: I'm very excited about the technology and perhaps equally as excited about the partnership that's developing here. Having been a field firefighter for many years, I wish I had had this tool 20 years ago. You can only imagine the feeling of seeing a fire take off up a hill and lifting embers and the wind blowing. And you don't know, from where you're standing, whether it's gone over the next road, over the next hill, over the next creek and what's out in front of you. You have an idea, because you're used to the area that you're fighting fire in -- although we fight fire all over the state, the Forest Service fights fire all over the nation, so you're not always in an area that's known to you. So to know if there's a community out there that's being threatened and that you need to stop what you're doing and change gears and employ different tactics is of tremendous value to the firefighters and to the community that we serve. Thank you.

GOVERNOR SCHWARZENEGGER: Thank you. And if you have any questions about any of this, please feel free. Yeah, please.

QUESTION/ANSWER:

QUESTION:              I noticed during your tour you asked some questions about the fires, about pollution, making remarks on global warming. And I'm going to take the politics out of this. Whether it be an Obama administration or a McCain administration, what are your thoughts on serving as Secretary of Energy and why that might appeal to you or might not?

GOVERNOR:            First of all, I have no interest in leaving the state of California until my mission is finished. So you should know that I have promised the people of California that we are going to turn the economy around, fix the budget system, have safe and reliable water 40, 50 years from now, not just two or three years from now, to make sure that we have a sound health care system. All of those things still need to be done. There are a lot of things we have accomplished in these last few years but there are a lot of things that need to be done. I never leave the job without having finished the mission.

And so these are all hypothetical questions. We have our hands full with reality, just to fight those fires and to bring the economy back and put people to work, that I don't want to deal with hypothetical's -- reality is already challenging enough. So it's very nice, I appreciate that people are thinking of me in those various different capacities. But as I've said to George Stephanopoulos in the interview on Sunday, that no matter what the administration is, I don't have to be the Secretary to go and help the administration, to go around the world and promote fighting global warming and to come up with a good, sound energy policy. And I will always be there, because I'm a public servant and I'm more than happy always to continue serving the United States, because as I said, the United States gave me everything that I have, so it's for me time to give something back.

QUESTION:             Governor (Inaudible)

GOVERNOR:           Say again?

QUESTION:              -- sign an executive order today lifting the ban on offshore oil drilling. Can we expect to see more drilling off California in the near future?

GOVERNOR:           Well, we will do everything we can never to have drilling, offshore drilling, in California, off our coast. Our coast is very precious. I've said that the people of California have no interest in drilling off the coast. What the people of California have an interest in is to come up with alternative-fueled vehicles in California like, for instance, Tesla Motors, to have an electric car so we don't need the fossil fuel in order to drive around. We have to come up with hybrid cars and with hydrogen cars. We have started successfully building the hydrogen highway in California and this is the direction California wants to go. We want to go not backwards, we want to go forward.

And anyone that tells you that oil drilling or any of those other ideas will bring relief immediately at the gas pump, I think is wrong. I think the only way that we can bring relief of what it costs to drive today is the people themselves can bring relief by changing the kind of cars they buy, changing the way they drive, not as aggressively, bring down the driving a little bit. Change and get your engines tuned up, drive with the right tire pressure. Those are the kinds of things that can reduce your cost immediately by 50 percent. So the people have the power to make those changes. Government does not have the power.

Government has the power, though, to have an energy policy that stays on course rather than always starting one with one administration and the next administration goes the other way and the next administration goes this way and the next administration goes this way. So we always change, there's no consistency in America. And those counties like Germany, that have had consistency for 30 years, get 20 percent of their renewables and are number one in solar power and other countries are number one with windmills and they're doing a great job, or like Brazil is number one with alternative fuels. So there are all kinds of great action going on all over the world. I think America has to stay the course, we have to have a good energy policy.

Yes, please.

QUESTION:              The sort of fires we're seeing today in June and July are typically the sort of things we see later in the fire season, in September. And right now the entire state's firefighting abilities is pretty much maxed out as far as firefighters and equipment. What does the state need to do to prepare for later in the fire season, when things conceivably could get worse?

GOVERNOR:            The legislators have to pass the Emergency Response Initiative. Because when we see a change, then we have to react quickly to that change and not wait and debate for three years. And I think this is the same as it was with the levees. I think that we have talked about, ever since I came into office, fixing the levees, that our levees are vulnerable. People didn't pay any attention, they started debating over it, should we really fix it, isn't it the federal government's responsibility, isn't it the private owners responsibility and all those things. Then, when Katrina happened, all of a sudden they all jumped into action and they realized the devastation that can occur when you're not prepared and they started putting money aside into our Infrastructure Bonds, which was $4.1 billion.

The same is now the case. You know, we have talked about the Blue Ribbon Commission has shown us, in 2003, when we had the big fires in 2003, what needs to be done. And we have started increasing the amount of fire trucks, the engines and the personnel and all of those things. But we can see that that's not fast enough, that what we have to do is we have to adjust quickly now, because there is no more fire season, as you were just saying, that usually is in the fall. Now it starts in February and it goes all year through. This fire will go -- you know, we will be containing it, we will be controlling it, it will be put out. And as I said, everyone is doing a great job with it.

But there will be other fires and it will continue on throughout the summer and the fall. So we have to adjust to that and we need extra revenues in order to buy the engines, in order to get the extra personnel and the aircraft and all of those things that we need, so we don't have to totally rely always on the federal government. The federal government, like I said, they have already come in with 80 percent of all of their resources. That is staggering. That is tremendous help. And other states have come in and other countries have come in. But we should be prepared for those kinds of fires and then get additional help from the outside.

So this is why we want to step it up and I think it's very important for the legislators not to debate over, is this a tax increase or is this a fee, or what it is. But we need to save lives and we need to save property. That is the main issue, rather than debating over what's the definition of a fee increase on homeowners.

QUESTION:             You've visited a number of these fire disasters. What strikes you the most, outside of the hard work of the firefighters, which you've praised numerous times, their talents. What strikes you the most as you visit these disaster areas?

GOVERNOR:           Well, I think that the thing and why I'm here today, is of how the different forces have come together. I mean, who would expect, for instance, for NASA for have a drone that is assisting the firefighters and the decision makers in the bottom, because they can't always see those fires and they can't see through the thick smoke and all this and to assist them in, for instance butte County, to make them be a step ahead of the game and to evacuate 10,000 people that could have been threatened and in serious danger because of this.

So everyone working together, if it's NASA, if it is the federal government, all the different agencies, the locals, the state. The way everyone has been working together is unlike anything that I have seen. There are not the fights that they usually have when federal and state and locals work together. It's smooth. They have their debates, they have their lively debates over how to approach those fires but they are resolved and they work together. And to me that is the most important thing and that's why we have been so successful in putting out those fires.

Because let me tell you something; we have broken a record. There was a record in 1936, with around 750,000 acres of land that burned. We now are at 850,000 acres, just to show to you this is an enormous amount of land that has burned. And at the same time, instead of like last year, 3,000 structures that have been destroyed, this year, luckily, only 280 structures have been destroyed because of the quick reaction of the firefighters, the quick action and everyone working together. And we have saved also many lives because of it.

So that, to me -- you know, it's always a tragedy when you watch the devastation of those fires and the homes being burnt down and all of those things and the tough work that the firefighters have. But at the same time, it is a great pleasure for me to see when I visit all those fires, of how well everyone works together.

Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you.