GENERAL AVIATION TO THE RESCUE Continued from page 23 Sonoma Jet Center fuels a Sikorsky Sky Crane to assist firefighting efforts during the October 2017 Northern California firestorm. SONOMA JET CENTER – SANTA ROSA, CALIFORNIA Hurricanes weren’t the only natural disasters to directly impact NATA members in 2017. The community around Sonoma Jet Center, an FBO at Charles M. Shulz Sonoma County Airport (STS) in Santa Rosa, California, was hit hard in October as a series of more than 250 wildfires known as the Northern California firestorm ravaged the area. The fires killed 45 people, making them the deadliest fire in the United States in 100 years, since the Cloquet fire that killed close to 1,000 people in Minnesota in 1918. The Northern California firestorm also destroyed nearly 9,000 buildings and burned as many as 245,000 acres between October 8 and October 31, 2017. The damage to the area was later estimated at $85 billion, the costliest fire on record. “Everybody came to work during the fires, that was the amazing thing,” said Josh Hochberg, Owner and President at Sonoma Jet Center. “This was the first place that many of our employees came, whether they were scheduled to work or not, because this was the place they wanted to be—to be safe, to help other people and where they knew they could make the biggest impact.” The Charles M. Shulz Sonoma County Airport remained open throughout the entire firestorm, and so did Sonoma Jet Center. 24 “The biggest lesson we learned is not only to have a backup generator but also to have a backup backup gen- erator that isn’t on the public utility’s natural gas system, because when the public utility shuts off the natural gas utility during the fire, now you don’t have a backup genera- tor,” Hochberg clarifies. “Fortunately, I have a friend in the propane business who sells propane-powered generators that come with their own tank, and that’s how we were able to get power so quickly. Special thanks to Blue Star Gas, because they got us our generator right away. Before 9 a.m. that morning, we had power on our fuel farm. We were fuel- ing aircraft on the very first day of the fires.” Hochberg explained: “We were helping people get out, helping firefighters and emergency responders get in, help- ing to make sure there was up-to-date info for the aircraft operators coming in and out of the airport, and also fueling the firefighting aircraft for the California Department of Forestry. Sonoma Jet Center and our competitor, KaiserAir, worked extra hard to support the firefighting efforts. It was really a tremendous effort on everybody’s part.” Hochberg’s team also worked with Signature Flight Support in San Diego and Textron Aviation Service in Sacramento to coordinate several large-scale relief efforts using donated aircraft to the area in the days after fires started, with flights coming in to deliver supplies and donated gift cards for families who had fled the fires. Aviation Business Journal | 3rd Quarter 2018
