The Ramona Air Attack Base is located in the CDF San Diego Unit and was established in 1957 by CDF, making it the oldest Air Attack Base in the Department’s system. In 1960, the US Forest Service set up and operated from Ramona, separate from CDF, until 1966 when the agencies integrated and Ramona became a jointly operated base.
Ramona responds to an average of 250 calls per year. On average, the base pumps 850,000 gallons of retardant a year. Ramona has a possible peak output of 150,000 gallons of retardant each day.
The base’s direct protection area encompasses over 1.4 million acres for CDF, 300,000 for the US Forest Service, and covers all of San Diego County.
In 2003, while fires burned out of control in all of southern California in red flag conditions, San Diego was hit with the Cedar, Paradise, and Otay fires, the worst in California history. Nearly 500,000 combined acres burned on these three fires. The Ramona Air Attack Base sent out an airtanker every 30 seconds for a total of 215 flights to the fires on the first day, all of which were flown by CDF S-2Ts and S-2As. Over a three-day period, 560 flights were made out of Ramona with 10 CDF airtankers and two US Forest Service DC4 airtankers.