By Stephen Witt
The Los Angeles County Fire Department’s (LACoFD) Barton Heliport, tucked alongside the 184-acre Whiteman Airport in Pacoima, might seem like a minor footnote in the long-running controversy over the county-owned airfield’s future, but to fire department brass, the approximately 5.3-acre heliport is the nerve center of the county’s entire aerial firefighting operation.
LACoFD Public Information Officer Fire Captain Aaron Katon and Communications Manager Heidi Oliva said in emailed statements to Los Angeles County Politics (LACP) that Barton functions as the department’s primary aviation operations hub and maintenance facility.
“Helicopter flight crews complete daily shift exchanges at Barton Heliport before deploying strategically throughout Los Angeles County. Each day, three aircraft are assigned to key operational regions, including the Santa Monica Mountains/Malibu area, the Antelope Valley/Lancaster-Palmdale region, and the eastern portion of the County at Brackett Field in Pomona,” wrote Katon.
“At the conclusion of each 24-hour operational shift, aircraft return to Barton Heliport for scheduled maintenance, inspections, refueling, and crew exchange,” he added.
Katon and Oliva’s responses came following an At Witt’s End column in which this publication argued the county should close Whiteman Airport and use the corridor to expand Barton Heliport into a fully modernized emergency aviation hub serving the northeast San Fernando Valley.
Interestingly, the LACoFD had a “No comment” when asked what it thought of expanding Barton and closing Whiteman, which I interpret as meaning it is worth considering as part of the county’s overall strategy to combat wildfires — particularly in the San Fernando Valley, which is among the highest-fire-risk corridors in California.
If Barton Heliport were expanded into a fully-resourced emergency aviation hub, what role would Whiteman Airport play?
The honest answer may be none — and worse, an active liability. During a major fire emergency in the northeast San Fernando Valley, the roughly 600 private single-engine aircraft based at Whiteman would share airspace with county fire helicopters operating out of an expanded Barton.
Airspace coordination during the January fires was already strained across multiple fronts. A fully operational general aviation airport adjacent to an expanded emergency hub is not a neutral presence. It is a complication — one that the county has not publicly modeled, and one that the pro-airport coalition nor the ongoing Trifiletti study on the airport’s future has ever been asked to address.
But as one critic of my column noted, “Kid, you have two ears and one mouth. That signifies that you should listen twice as much as you should talk.”
So who am I to open my mouth and try to figure this out?
Those are questions for the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration and the millions of county residents who depend on their government to fulfill its chief fiduciary duty — protecting the lives, safety, and property of its people.
Stephen Witt is the founder, publisher, and editor-in-chief of Los Angeles County Politics.
