60 Minutes - 6/26/2022: Targeting Americans, Take the Fight to the Night

Episode Date: June 27, 2022

On this edition of “60 Minutes,” Scott Pelley investigates U.S. government officials reporting mysterious brain injuries. Bill Whitaker looks into wildfires raging through California. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Someone is trying to send us a message that they can strike blows against us and we can't strike back. This former national security official believes he was attacked in Washington with a mysterious weapon. He's not alone. The director of the CIA and the FBI are investigating other incidents two were reported at the White House is the national security structure in danger of being incapacitated during a time of crisis no I don't think that's the case but if people are being overcome on West Executive Avenue is that an indication that the case. But if people are being overcome on West Executive Avenue,

is that an indication that the White House and its grounds are no longer safe? California suffered one of its worst fire seasons last year. Drought-parched forests are burning so hot, they generate their own fire tornadoes. Look at that. These fires get so large that there aren't enough firefighters, aren't enough airplanes, helicopters, bulldozers. And 60 Minutes found out there's also more than a whiff of bureaucracy in the smoke-filled air, which seemed to slow the deployment

of new high-tech nighttime aircraft during the height of the emergency. I'm Leslie Stahl. I'm Bill Whitaker. I'm Anderson Cooper. I'm Leslie Stahl. I'm Bill Whitaker. I'm Anderson Cooper. I'm Sharon Alfonsi. I'm John Wertheim. I'm Scott Pelley. Those stories tonight on 60 Minutes.

Wendy's most important deal of the day has a fresh lineup. Pick any two breakfast items for $4. New four-piece French toast sticks, bacon or sausage wrap, biscuit or English muffin sandwiches, small hot coffee, and more. Limited time only at participating Wendy's Taxes Extra. Since 2016, U.S. government officials overseas and their families have reported sudden, unexplained brain injuries with symptoms of vertigo, confusion, and memory loss.

The CIA, FBI, and State Department are investigating a theory that some of these officials were injured by an unseen weapon. Who might be targeting Americans and why are unknown. Incidents have been reported in Europe, Asia, and Latin America, but as we first told you in February, our reporting has found senior national security officials who say they were stricken in Washington and on the grounds of the White House. The former officials you're about to meet are revealing their experiences for the first time. They were responsible for helping to manage threats to national security.

I covered any and all emerging threats, homeland security incidents domestically, so I covered whether it was from mass shootings to hurricanes to natural disasters. Olivia Troy was Homeland Security and counterterrorism advisor to Vice President Mike Pence. She had served in the Pentagon, deployed to Iraq, served in the Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Counterterrorism Center. At the White House, she worked in the 19th century Eisenhower Executive Office Building

beside the West Wing. In the summer of 2019, she was descending these stairs toward the White House when she felt she had been physically struck. But it was like this piercing feeling on the side of my head. It was like, I remember it was on the right side of my head, and I got, like, vertigo. I was unsteady. I was, I felt nauseous. I was somewhat disoriented, and I was just, I remember thinking, like, okay, you gotta,

if you don't fall down the stairs, like, you've gotta find your ground again and steady yourself. She steadied herself on a railing but the piercing feeling continued as she passed by this entrance to the west wing it was almost like i couldn't really process it was like a paralyzing panic attack i've never had that um i've never felt anything like that and so i you know i thought to myself i mean do i have a brain tumor

out of the blue? Is this what happened? Am I having a stroke? Olivia Troy was inside the security perimeter, headed to her car. She went down the steps, past the West Wing, and down the closed parking lot used by presidents called West Executive Avenue. Then she passed through the Secret Service gate and out to the staff parking in the Ellipse, south of the White House. Did you ever experience anything like this again? So not immediately, but I did again about a year later. It didn't happen on the steps. It happened a couple times, walking to't happen on the steps, it happened a couple times

walking to my car on the Ellipse. Tell me about those times. It was a similar sensation but this time it was very much the feeling of vertigo and dizziness and I felt like I couldn't really walk. There was sort of a, it was like I had a depth perception issue where I couldn't figure out where the ground was. And I would start walking, and I felt like I was just going to fall right into the ground. Troy says she didn't report the episodes because she didn't want to believe she was seriously ill, and she worried what it would mean to her security clearance and career.

After this interview, she reported for the first time. There is a human aspect of it of shame and do you really want to admit you're sick? Do you want to come forward and tell someone that, especially as a member of the intelligence community? I think I'm still processing all of it and thinking about like how many more people are like me who felt this. It appears there are several. A senior member of the National Security Council says he was stricken in November 2020 on the same steps by the West Wing. That former official whose incident was first reported in The New Yorker asked us not to name him, but he described the incident to a close colleague, John Bolton, former National Security Advisor. They had disorientation and ringing in their ears and just a general inability to function.

Bolton told us the official said he couldn't speak or think clearly. He was taken to an emergency room. The former official sent us this note saying that more than a year later, I'm still recovering and suffering from headaches and other symptoms and have been diagnosed with two other medical conditions that are believed to be the result of the attack. He's still an outpatient at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. That was a very debilitating attack, and similar to what others have reported. Those others include Miles Taylor, also speaking for the first time. Taylor was deputy chief of staff and later chief of staff of the Trump administration Department of Homeland Security.

Your job is to oversee the roughly 250,000 men and women of the department that conduct in a range of missions from aviation security to border security to cybersecurity. Taylor told us he was hit with the same symptoms described by Olivia Troy. It was late one night in April 2018. I had just become deputy chief of staff of the department, taking on some additional sensitive issues at DHS, and woke up in my apartment that night, a row house on Capitol Hill, to a really strange sound. The sound that woke Miles Taylor is a common experience reported by dozens of Americans

stricken overseas. It was sort of a chirping, somewhere between what you would think is a cricket or sort of a digital sound. I didn't know what it was, but it was enough to wake me up. What was really strange about it is I went to the window, opened up my window, looked down at the street. And keep in mind, Scott, this is probably 3, 3.30 in the morning. And I see a white van, and the van's brake lights turned on, and it pulled off, and it sped away. How long did it last? This whole episode only lasted about 7 to 10 minutes.

How did you feel the next day? Off. Off. Not ready to go to work. You know, kind of wanting to take the day off. You know, sick. Then, about five weeks later, Taylor says it happened again. Next day, feeling off balance, feeling just out of it.

Again, those sort of concussion-like symptoms you would have from, you know, getting knocked pretty hard in a sport. And that incident stood out to me because I was actually just getting ready to leave to go to Israel on a congressional delegation. We were going to meet the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, have some sensitive conversations with the Israelis on important cybersecurity issues. And I remember because I got to the airplane at Andrews Air Force Base to take off and thought, I'm already nauseous. I don't know if I can do this flight. Both Miles Taylor and Olivia Troy became critics of the Trump administration, but they told us that has nothing to do with what they see

as a potential threat to national security. Taylor says he became alarmed by that threat in 2018 after he heard of another case like his in the Washington area. I became aware of a U.S. government official more senior than me who'd experienced similar episodes at their place of residence. You say more senior than you. Are you talking about a cabinet-level secretary? This was an individual that, yes, was roughly at the cabinet level in the Trump administration who had had similar episodes occur. That, to me, as a Homeland Security professional, was a big blinking red light.

I mean, to me, this said five-alarm fire. We may have ongoing activity targeting U.S. government officials here in our country. Who was it? I can't say the individual. Out of respect for their privacy, I'll leave it at that. But someone senior enough to say this is more than just a fluke. More than a fluke, a pattern across two administrations. Recent injuries among U.S. officials were reported in Vienna, Austria,

ahead of a trip by the vice president to Vietnam, and in India during a visit by the director of the CIA. In 2019, during a visit by President Trump to London, two members of John Bolton's national security staff became ill in a hotel. And that it was on the floor where it was completely taken up with personnel from the White House and White House agencies struck me as being pretty good evidence of a deliberate attack. You believe it was an attack? I don't think there's any other hypothesis when you begin to look at the number and the pattern that we've experienced. Bolton says months later, one of those staff members hurt in

London said she was overcome again walking her dog in the Washington area. We have found she is not the only one who says they were attacked abroad and later at home. You must have thought that when you were home in america that you were safe i'll tell you when i landed from china i literally was kissing the ground we met robin garfield in 2019 he's a commerce department official who told us that he his wife and two children were repeatedly hit in china your daughter was literally falling down? Yes. She fell down multiple times that day. They were evacuated and enrolled in a State Department treatment program at the University of Pennsylvania.

Recently, Garfield told us his family was hit again during their year of treatment in Philadelphia. My wife catapulted out of bed and sprinted down the hallway to check the children without any word. And she came back and she told me that an extremely loud, painful sound had woken her up. So they moved to a hotel where Garfield says it happened again. And we woke up around, I believe, 2 a.m. with strange vibrations in our bodies and a sound.

Which led Garfield to check on his children in another room. I saw an extremely eerie scene where both were thrashing in their beds, asleep, but both kicking and moving pretty aggressively. And I went over to my daughter, and I put my head down next to her head, and I heard a very distinct sound just right there, sort of like water rushing. So I picked her up, took her in, put her with my wife, and came back, sort of like water rushing. So I picked her up, took her in, put her with my wife and came back and I checked my son. Same sound, just right next to his head. So I picked him up, put him on my shoulder, walked over to my wife and I said, we're getting out of here. Garfield reported this to the FBI. Today, his family is posted abroad, where they continue to work to improve balance, eyesight, and memory. This is the most difficult aspect of this whole issue for me,

are the children who've been impacted, both mine as well as many others. I personally know the parents of, I believe, eight other children. I can tell you, I've personally seen balance issues in children that have never had that trouble with finding their words, stuttering, and then continuing challenges around vision. One of the things that we have heard from some parents is that these are manifesting in the classroom in real, tangible ways. Persistent neurological symptoms are not the only fight these Americans have faced. Some of their early reports were dismissed as psychosomatic or illnesses connected to an infection or exposure to pesticides. Some were told that they were suffering the effects of old sports injuries.

One theory had it that the sound these victims heard during the incidents was actually a particular species of cicada. It was rough. It was rough in the beginning. It was a dark place to be. We were kind of shoved aside, and they wanted it to go away. This man is among those who fought for recognition. He's one of the first cases from 2016. Americans assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Cuba say they and their families were struck at home frequently in the night. He remembers the first time.

And that night, all the dogs started kicking off in the neighborhood, barking, which was very unusual for them all to go and chorus. And then this just loud sound just absolutely filled my room. It felt like my head was slowly starting to get crushed. We agreed not to use his name. He is not allowed to say what federal agency he worked for. And then the ear, severe ear pain started. So I liken it to if you put a Q-tip too far and you bounce off your eardrum, well, imagine taking a sharp pencil and just kind of poking that.

It was very jarring and painful. And eventually I started blacking out. With the first public reports coming from Cuba, the affliction became known as Havana Syndrome. More than two dozen embassy officials reported injury, but an early FBI report speculated it was all mass hysteria. His brain injuries left him disabled, essentially retired, at the age of 36. A weighted vest helps him balance. His service dog helps with walking and his loss of vision. Legally blind in one eye. Correct, yeah. What have the doctors told you? It's not the eye, it's the wiring. What do you mean? That the eye function as itself is completely correct and appropriate. It's the signal that comes out the back of the eye into the brain is where the problems are.

And no one really knows how to fix that. He is speaking tonight for the first time to put an end to doubt. You have not wanted to do this interview. No. This is probably one of my worst nightmares. Why is that? I didn't do my job because I want to be known. I did my job because I love my country and I was good at it. God, and I miss my job. I'm here because I'm tired of the gaslighting that keeps happening from the U.S. government. I'm tired of this yo-yoing because I'm watching new colleagues and friends that I've trained with and friends that I've

known for years that are being sent to these countries and coming back a shell of their former selves. We need to help them and we need to stop this. But who is it that must be stopped? When we come back, we'll ask the director of the CIA about his investigation, and we'll look at the kind of device capable of inflicting brain injury without a trace. Why do fintechs like Float choose Visa? As a more trusted, more secure payments network, Visa provides scale, expertise, and innovative payment solutions. Learn more at Visa.ca slash FinTech. an Instacart shopper and deliver to your door. A well-marbled ribeye you ordered without even leaving the kiddie pool. Whatever groceries your summer calls for, Instacart has you covered.

Download the Instacart app and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. Brain injuries suffered by U.S. officials in Washington and abroad are the focus of an intense investigation. After starting with around 1,000 possible cases, a CIA task force has zeroed in on about two dozen that cannot be explained. The task force, which includes the FBI, is led by a CIA officer who helped find Osama bin Laden. The director of the CIA, William Burns, told us earlier this year, one thing is already clear. After early disbelief, these injured Americans can no longer be doubted.

In my first week as director, I began what have become dozens and dozens of meetings with affected officers and family members, and I've found their stories to be powerful and compelling and sometimes heartbreaking. Bill Burns had heard those stories from CIA officers who reported injuries since 2016, but this past fall, while on an official visit to India, a member of his staff was stricken in their hotel. Later, Burns personally escorted that staff member to medical evaluations. It seems that the Delhi incident might have been intended to send you a message. I don't know, and as I said, I can't comment on individual cases here as well. All I can tell you is that each story I've heard, each officer I've met with

who's been affected by this, just redoubles my commitment and my determination on this issue. I have enormous faith in our officers. Bill Burns served five presidents at the State Department, rising to the highest rank in the Foreign Service. He took over CIA for President Biden in March of 21. Early on, I tripled the number of full-time medical personnel working on this issue. We streamlined access to Walter Reed, established new partnerships with other world-class medical providers, increased the number of case managers. And we're also making progress on the investigative side as well. Progress on the investigative side came in

February with a report on the nature of the brain injury. What we're hearing about now is... Dr. David Relman helped lead two government panels that investigated the injuries. He's a professor of medicine at Stanford University. What we found was, we thought, clear evidence of an injury to the auditory and vestibular system of the brain. Everything starting with the inner ear, where humans perceive sound and sense balance, and then translate those perceptions into brain electrical signals. Dr. Relman's committees focused on one subset of patients whose experiences seemed inexplicable. This subset of cases had a very unusual so-called acute sensory event, an experience that consisted of the abrupt onset of intense pressure or vibration in the face or head, sometimes with the abrupt onset of sound.

Sound like that described by the officials who spoke to us. And then this just loud sound just absolutely filled my room. This former official, who we agreed not to name, recorded the sound at his home in Havana. Before we play it, understand that the sound does not cause the injury. It is a byproduct, like the sound of a gun, which is not what does the harm. Here's what he recorded. The injured officials we spoke with said the sound, or a feeling of pressure, came from one direction and focused in one location.

It was a continuous sound and one that only changed based on my locations. They left, it dissipated. They returned, it recurred. That to us was something that we had never heard of, we could not explain by known medical or environmental conditions. And to us deserved our special attention in an effort to understand what might be the plausible mechanism. That mechanism, Dr. Railman's committees concluded, was most likely pulsed electromagnetic energy. In other words, a focused beam of microwaves fired from a distance. I think the best explanation, most plausible, is that it's a high-power microwave weapon. James Benford is a physicist and leading authority on microwaves.

He was not part of the government's studies, but he co-wrote the book on microwave transmission. These are portable microwave transmitters of the kind that could damage the tissues of the brain. There are many kinds and they can go anywhere in size from a suitcase all the way up to a large tractor trailer unit. And the bigger the device, the longer the range. This would be able to transmit its microwave energy through the wall of a van, the wall of a home, something like that? Vans have windows. Microwaves go through glass. They go through brick. They go through practically everything.

The technology, Binford told us, has been studied more than 50 years. It's been developed widely in perhaps a dozen countries. The primary countries are the United States, Russia, and China. The implications of a mechanism like that suggest something different about the world now, involving the loss of norms. Humans were affected in a serious fashion, and for that very reason alone,

we have to understand this better. The investigation is also trying to understand who could be behind this and their motive. Microwaves can be a tool for spies. Some devices are capable of collecting data remotely from phones and computers. Whatever is causing the brain injuries, a CIA interim report last January

said there is no evidence of a massive global campaign to attack Americans. The interim CIA report last month said, we assess it unlikely that a foreign actor, including Russia, is conducting a sustained worldwide campaign harming U.S. personnel with a weapon or a mechanism. Do you mean to say that no one was harmed by a hostile actor? Not at all. The intelligence community assesses now that there's not a single cause that it would explain the more than a thousand incidents that have been reported since Havana in 2016.

We've also not yet been able to link a foreign state actor or an external device or mechanism to any of those cases. This is the world's preeminent intelligence agency. Why is this so hard to figure out? It's a very complicated issue, you know, dealing with a whole range of incidents which have, you know, different kinds of explanations for them as well. It's a very charged issue emotionally as well. I understand that very clearly. That's what, you know, makes me even more determined not only to ensure people get the care that they deserve, but also that we get to the bottom of this.

Former National Security Advisor John Bolton fears there is a threat to the highest levels of government, given the two national security officials who say they were overcome on West Executive Avenue by the West Wing inside the White House gates. If we were at war and an adversary could disable the president and his top advisors or commanders in the field, it could render us extraordinarily vulnerable. We don't know that that's the threat we're facing,

but I would much rather focus on finding out the answer now rather than finding out later when it may be too late. Former Homeland Security Chief of Staff Miles Taylor says he believes he was targeted in two mysterious incidents at his Washington home. Someone is trying to send us a message that they can strike blows against us and we can't strike back. That line being crossed into the United States takes this, in some ways, just shy of the realm of warfare. Is the national security structure in danger of being incapacitated during a time of crisis? No, I don't think that's the case. But if people are being overcome on West Executive Avenue, is that an indication that the White House and its grounds are no longer safe? No, I don't believe that's the case.

What it is an indication of is that we need to take each of these reported incidents very seriously. And as a government, and this is a government-wide effort, to pour the very best resources we have into this. What line is crossed if a hostile actor is doing this in Washington, D.C.? Oh, that would be a pretty profound line to be crossed if, in fact, that were the case, if we were ever able to develop concrete evidence that that were the case. But we do not have evidence of that at this point. You understand how frustrating your comments must be to some of these people who believe they know exactly what happened to them on what day and at what time and what happened to their children, and yet the director of the CIA is saying, we can't connect the dots. We don't know enough yet. We're not at a position yet where we can offer hard evidence that would connect all those dots.

But as I said, we're not done yet. We still have a lot of work to do. And what I've said directly to a number of those officers is my promise is that I am absolutely committed to exhausting every alternative so that we can provide the kind of answers that we owe them. Last summer in Geneva, President Biden raised the issue with Russian President Putin. The Russians deny they're involved. The Secret Service declined to comment on White House security. The Iron Gates of West Executive Avenue by the West Wing went up in 1951 after the attempted assassination of Harry Truman. Seventy years later, there is evidence the gates may have been breached by an invisible threat. Last summer, California suffered one of the most savage fire years in its history.

Drought and scorching temperatures turbocharged fires that were more extreme than ever. Two of the biggest fires in state history laid siege to more than a million acres in northern California, burning dangerously close to Lake Tahoe. Firefighters didn't have a day off for months. Fire chiefs warned there weren't enough aircraft to go around. It's a war, one told us. So fire chiefs from Southern California stole a page from the military, taking the fight to the night. As we first reported last fall, a fleet of high-tech helicopters fought wildfires 24-7. And for the first time, the giant Chinook, you've seen them in other war zones, led the night assault. It was an $18 million pilot program that the fire chief's hope

will be a game changer. The U.S. Forest Service was already short-staffed when the Kaldor Fire exploded last August, churning towards South Lake Tahoe. Thousands of residents were forced to flee. To the north, the Dixie Fire rampaged for months, demolishing historic gold rush towns. The drought-parched forests burn so hot they generate their own fire tornadoes. Look at that.

Between the two infernos, more than 8,000 bone-weary firefighters fought a relentless battle. We'd never seen fire. Orange County Fire Chief Brian Fennessy, a former hotshot who has been fighting fires in Southern California for 44 years, told us there was no more give in the system. These fires get so large that there aren't enough firefighters, aren't enough airplanes, helicopters, bulldozers. I would think that would be worrisome. You know, we're to the point where if we were to send much more,

we are going to have firehouses that are empty. And for the people that we've sworn to serve, our taxpayers, it's not acceptable to have firehouses empty for any length of time. Everything is stretched to the limit. Everything is stretched. We met Brian Fennessy at the Truckee Airfield, about 45 miles from the fires. After Caldor destroyed the town of Grizzly Flats, Fennessy volunteered to send his new firefighting choppers north. More like flying computers with rotors on top, they're called the Quick Reaction Force.

Fennessy calls the fleet the Hammer. This is the Hammer. So someone calls 911, you hit it with everything you've got, these big guys, and knock it out. In case of fire, break glass. The star of the show is the massive Chinook. This one used to fly in Afghanistan for the US Army. It's been retrofitted to fight a different war,

dropping water or retardant. Now, Fennessy told us they have this powerful new tool to take that fight to the night. The ability to lay retardant line, to continue to drop fire retardant after sundown, that's a first. That's going to change the way you fight fires? We hope so.

The Chinook can drop 3,000 gallons. That's about ten times what most firefighting choppers drop. No bigger helicopter has ever fought fires at night. They work hard. Wayne Colson, the CEO of Colson Aviation, which built the fleet, is a pioneer in night firefighting. He showed us the specially designed tank. Computers control the tank's doors,

opening at precise GPS points. You can zero in exactly on the spot you want to drop. We can fly the aircraft to those GPS points and the doors will automatically open and close between those two points. Colson told us it's a more surgical strike. Flame retardant can be dropped in almost straight lines. At night, there's an added advantage. The fire usually dies down. Is that a better time to hit the fire? It absolutely is. That's when it's its weakest. Usually its weakest.

That's the time to attack an enemy at its weakest point in time. The quick reaction force works in pairs. The Chinook gets its orders from this aircraft. Think of it as a traffic control tower, but in the air. Wearing night vision goggles, Orange County Air Attack Officer Joel Lane uses infrared cameras to see through the smoke to map the best targets for the Chinook. It's a no-go for anything on the east side. We're turning around now. Okay, copy that. Lane has spent the last 23 years in the air.

Improved night vision technology has revived night firefighting. Most agencies halted night flying after a mid-air collision in the 1970s. Lane told us the technology means they can attack fires at any hour. If you time a fire, let's say, for one minute, and it's two acres, in two minutes, it's not gonna be four, it's gonna be nine. And in three minutes, it's gonna be 27. And the fire is going faster.

And the only thing that stops that is speed and force. And that's what you get with the aircraft. That is exactly what you get with the aircraft. In early September, we flew with Britt Colson, Wayne's son and tech wizard at Colson Aviation. He turned on the powerful thermal imaging camera, and the Kaldor fire burst into view. Those flames are higher than the trees. As we flew closer, we watched a fountain of flames

exploding over the treetops. There was fire everywhere, every point of light a potentially hellish new blaze. The embers that come up when it's really intense, they're going to spot out far ahead. Zooming in, Britt Colson showed us a spot fire that had leapt over a containment line dug by firefighters. So let's say if they were trying to catch it along that ridge line there. This has already jumped over. It's jumped over. Without this type of technology, they're never going to see that.

We circled the fires at 13,000 feet. Below us, we spotted the command helicopter with Joel Lane. A thousand feet below that is where the Chinook flies. Lane directs the Big Chopper to the drop zone. From our perch, we could almost count the trees as we flew over a blackened landscape. Then we saw boats, docks, and houses. South Lake Tahoe.

That's South Lake Tahoe Airport right there. And then you've got the fire right there. Right behind you. So there you've got all the individual embers coming up. That's burning heavily. Yeah. The Chinook sweeps across the flames. Start drop.

I can see the wet rock down here. I mean, we're getting water down on it. Drops its water, then heads to the nearest lake to refill. Unlike fixed-wing craft that have to return to base, the Chinook can refill anywhere. Hovering like some prehistoric bird, it sucks up 3,000 gallons in 90 seconds. Start with the point. This doesn't come cheap. A helitanker can cost up to $15 million and $8,000 an hour to operate.

But Joel Lane told us it's money well spent. He told us about the Tuna Fire, which ignited in dry brush near Malibu last July. It was promptly doused by a quick-reaction Chinook at a cost of several hundred thousand dollars, a fraction of what it would have cost if the fire had gotten out of control. If you never heard of the Tuna Fire, says Lane, that's a win. So the 10-acre fire that we catch 98 percent of the time, it's never going to make the paper, you're never going to hear about it. Public wakes up the next day and they, unless they drive by it, they never know what happened.

And we do that very successfully, especially in Southern California. The finances that you're laying out, that, yes, it's expensive to have these aircraft, but it's more expensive if you don't catch the fire. Exponentially. Exponentially more expensive. Correct. In Northern California, the Dixie Fire became the largest single fire in state history. Firefighters fought the Caldor Fire for months.

The cost? More than a half billion dollars and climbing. Yet during our trip last August, the helitankers flew only one out of four nights. We wondered why. So did Orange County Fire Chief Brian Fennessy, who had sent his best equipment to fight the state's worst fires. Did they not put it to work as soon as you brought it up here? Not initially, no. Why not? It took a lot of, they didn't have any familiarization with, you know, flying at night, and so we had to slow down. And we're in the middle of chaos and uncertainty, and homes are

burning. That doesn't work. In the week we were there, the Caldor fire grew by 40,000 acres. Perhaps as alarming, we discovered the slowdown was fueled in part by infighting between the U.S. Forest Service, which oversees federal lands, and CAL FIRE, responsible for state forests. Chief Fennessy told us he twice offered up his new fleet and twice met with discord and confusion. Again, onto our go-no-go checklist. We saw the Forest Service sign off on decisions only to have them changed by CAL FIRE.

Firefighters told us the agencies disagreed about night missions, radio frequencies, how to feed firefighters. They both challenged the credentials of the Orange County flight crews. That doesn't seem like the most efficient way to handle the resources, especially in the face of a huge fire. Extremely frustrating. We have a system, the fire service, where we honor each other's qualifications. Yeah, it is frustrating because, where we honor each other's qualifications. Yeah, it is frustrating because, you know,

when there's a delay in accepting these qualifications to the detriment of the public, yeah, that's a concern. When Chief Fennessy first sent his choppers, two crews sat on the tarmac for 48 hours. Fed up, he protested in an email, which we obtained through a freedom of information request. I don't think the public will understand this nonsense, he wrote, especially if our crews are grounded and there are no aviation safety issues to address. Cal Fire told us the crew check was

a standard safety procedure and that smoke and wind prevented flying some nights. Chief Fennessy told us only when he threatened to take his choppers back south did the agencies give the green light to fly. Still, Brian Fennessy and two other Southern California fire chiefs were so dismayed the fleet was being used so little, they complained in an email to the Forest Service. Quote, there was ample opportunity for the safe, consistent operation of the quick reaction force, both during the day and at night.

But this did not occur. Well, I have an expectation that if I'm going to loan you, you know, my stuff because you're having an emergency, you're going to put it to work. If you're not going to put it to work, send it home. Because I've got work and I've got citizens here to protect. We're going to go to work. Phenasy told us the intensity of these fires demands a new approach to fighting them.

I'd heard from agencies at the highest level that there was not a concern for aviation safety. It was more of a concern for... Bureaucracy. You said it. The fires are changing. The fires are changing. The climate is changing. We've got. The fires are changing. Fires are changing. The climate is changing.

We've got to be more nimble. We've got to be able to pivot very quickly. Fires aren't going to wait for you to get your act together. No, they're not. We repeatedly asked CAL FIRE and the Forest Service why the night-flying choppers weren't used more. Weeks later, they did get together to issue a joint statement about their, quote, shared mission. They wrote, each fire presents its own unique challenges, and fire managers stand shoulder to shoulder every day to overcome these hurdles. The day after we left, Chief Fennessy took his quick reaction force back south, where the Santa Ana winds and the number of fires were picking up.

Fennessy told us with fires getting more extreme, CAL FIRE and the Forest Service can't afford to sideline the big hammer. These aircraft are being credited with saving countless property because they're available at night to do that. And you've proven it. You've proven it. It's a program that I believe needs to expand not just to Northern California, but throughout the West.

What's the resistance? Why the resistance? You know, my gut tells me, based on decades of experience in the fire service, that there's just an inherent resistance to change. But we've got to evolve. We've got to pivot. We are standing in a new world. It's not a new norm. It's the norm.

The Quick Reaction Force has been funded for a second fire season, July through December. I'm Scott Pelley. We'll be back next week with another edition of 60 Minutes.