At San Bernardino International Airport on Monday, all fixed-wing firefighting aircraft were temporarily grounded even as major wildfires continued to burn in Southern California .
Winds were simply too powerful to allow the planes to effectively contribute to the firefight amid the severe weather conditions.
“Where we really get into some more dangerous situations for our aviators is when it’s gusty,” Cal Fire Air Operations Branch Director Sean Ryan, a spokesman for the agency, told ABC7. “Sustained winds, they’re able to fly through those a little bit more predictably. But when we have high-gust spreads it becomes a lot more dangerous for those folks.”…