Local News in Brief : Pilot Defends Fire Flight
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A news helicopter pilot denied Thursday that he flew too close to the Redondo Beach Pier fire in May and endangered firefighters, as the city’s fire and police departments have asserted.
The May 27 blaze destroyed about 34,000 square feet of the pier, including 15 businesses, and caused $7-million damage. The Fire Department released a report this week that criticized helicopter pilot Bob Tur for hovering too close to the blaze, fanning smoke and flames, endangering firefighters and obstructing radio traffic with his copter’s noise.
“It’s easy to try to blame other people for the ineffectiveness of the Fire Department . . .,” Tur said Thursday. “They lost that fire, in my belief, because they didn’t know what they were doing.”
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