The Cedar Fire was a massive, highly-destructive wildfire, which burned 273,246 acres (1,106 km2) of land in San Diego County, California, during October and November 2003.

Within ten minutes of the initial report, the U.S. Forest Service had deployed 10 fire engines, two water tenders, two hand crews and two chief officers.

[8] An ASTREA helicopter of the San Diego County Sheriff's Department that was rescuing a hunter spotted the fire at about the same time as the first phone report was received and called for an air response.

By October 28, the strong easterly Santa Ana winds died down and the fire turned east, consuming another 114,000 acres (460 km2).

[14] On October 29, a group of firefighters attempting to defend a house in Riverwood Estates, near Santa Ysabel, became entrapped and overrun by the fire.

[19] Investigators determined that the fire was started by Sergio Martinez of West Covina, California, a novice hunter who was unprepared for the local back country and had become disorientated after venturing into "thick and tall" brush.

Two Local Sheriff deputies were already searching for Mr. Martinez in a helicopter and quickly spotted the thick black smoke from the fire he had set.

They found Mr. Martinez on a pile of rocks near a "parking lot sized" scorched area and alerted local fire crews.

[22] In November 2005, as part of a plea deal a federal judge sentenced Martinez to six months in a work-furlough program and ordered him to complete 960 hours (40 days) of community service.

The report stated that "Disorganization, inconsistent or outdated policies among agencies that grounded aircraft or caused other problems, and planning or logistics in disarray also marked the preliminary stages of the difficult, dangerous firefighting.

The federal government has an aviation assets "cutoff" policy which stated that "aircraft (planes or helicopters) may not be dispatched so as to arrive at an incident no later than 30 minutes before sunset".

[8] However, a study conducted by the Forest Service concluded that even if the helicopter had been able to drop multiple loads of water with direct hits on the flames, the impact on the fire would have been minimal.

[25] Both the media and local elected officials were also critical of the lack of use of military aviation assets located nearby at Camp Pendleton and Miramar.

[32] Some of those killed were so badly burned their remains were identified based on the dog tags of pets lying dead near them.