Wednesday August 29, 2001 |

HOPLAND, Calif. - Murder charges were filed yesterday against the man who allegedly started a campfire that grew out of control in rural Northern California, a blaze two pilots died fighting after their planes crashed in midair the day before.

The Mendocino County Sheriff's Department filed the charges after two air tanker planes collided Monday evening near Hopland, about 100 miles north of San Francisco, in a tragic turn as hundreds of firefighters continue to battle grassfires across the West.

The two dead pilots were retired Navy veteran Larry Groff, 55, of Santa Rosa and Lars Stratte, 45, of Chico, both employed by San Joaquin Helicopters, a Delano, Calif.-based company.

The man who allegedly started the fire, Frank Brady, 50, of Redwood City, Calif., was arrested and booked on murder charges in connection with the pilots' deaths. Brady was held yesterday without bail, and a second unidentified suspect also was arrested.

Hopland-area resident Jeff Anderson saw the planes collide from the deck of his home.

"They looked like they were closing in on each other," Anderson said. "You could tell immediately that they hit."

One plane broke into pieces and plummeted straight down, exploding in flames upon impact, Anderson said. The other crippled plane continued on briefly and crashed less than a quarter-mile away.

The pilots were flying alone in their Korean War-era Grumman S-2 airplanes when they clipped each other during a pass over a 250-acre brush fire.

Doug Baker, a fellow pilot with 22 years experience flying the S-2, said one pilots was circling the fire waiting to drop his load when the other flew into the same airspace.

"We are supposed to know where everybody is," Baker said. "We are a very close-knit group."

The cause of the collision remained under investigation.

The pilots were attempting to douse flames that had destroyed 12 structures and threatened more than a dozen others, according to the California Department of Forestry. It was 60 percent contained early yesterday.

The National Transportation Safety Board lists six accidents since 1995 involving aircraft operated by San Joaquin Helicopters. Of those six accidents, two involved minor pilot injuries and one 1998 crash resulted in an air tanker pilot death.

A call to San Joaquin Helicopters seeking comment on the company's aircraft safety history was not immediately returned.

Nine aircraft were being used to fight the blaze at the time of the collision, said Mendocino County Sheriff's Department Sgt. Ron Welch. However, Anderson, who witnessed the crash, told The Associated Press he saw no other planes in the sky at the time of the accident.

In Southern California, an 1,800-acre brush fire was 80 percent contained yesterday morning in the hills north of Los Angeles, just west of Interstate 5. No arrests had been made but fire officials were investigating whether an arsonist started the blaze.

The fire destroyed three structures, including at least one house, and burned to the doorsteps of several luxury homes. Residents were urged to evacuate.

Elsewhere, Montana crews battling a 23,500-acre wildfire between Livingston and Yellowstone National Park got help Monday from about 200 members of the state's National Guard, boosting the number of firefighters to roughly 900.

At Montana's Glacier National Park, officials closed four campgrounds yesterday and banned trips into the backcountry as firefighters battled a 4,700-acre blaze that burned just west of the park and forced the evacuation of a dozen homes.

Three large Idaho fires covering about 14,000 acres still were burning yesterday. The most serious was the 10,500 acre Rough Diamonds fire burning about 70 miles south of Boise that blazed to the edge of a forest road.

If the blaze crosses the road, it will threaten the historic mining town of Silver City.

Fires also crackled across parts of several other states in the West, including Nevada, Washington and Wyoming. All major fires burning in Oregon were contained yesterday.