Pacific West Builders

Scope Of Work

Pacific West Builders has just recently completed the design-build Kitchen Creek Helibase project located in East San Diego County for the USDA Forest Service. This facility is used by the Forest Service and their forest fire fighting unit to house and operate their Erikson Air-Crane helicopter used to fight forest fires within the San Diego County area and beyond. The project included the construction of three structures, a 2,500 sq/ft operations building, a 1,680 sq/ft garage building and a 12,000 sq/ft hangar building, two helicopter landing pads, taxiways, parking, a water well and site fencing. All three structures were built to withstand forest fires and were constructed using pre-engineered metal buildings. The operations building included sleeping rooms for the pilots, a dayroom, ready room, operations room and offices and restrooms. The hangar building, used to house the helicopter, required a sophisticated deluge, pre-action fire suppression system, including fire alarms, controls, a diesel jockey pump and a 130,000 gallon water tank. The site required extensive grading and drainage systems. The helipads and taxiways were surrounded by several thousand cubic yards of rock to prevent debris and foreign objects being blown up and causing damage to the helicopters due to the rotor wash. This project was also awarded based on a Best Value Solicitation.