SAN DIEGO - State and local officials rejected allegations Wednesday that air tankers and helicopters that could be fighting San Diego County's four-day-old firestorms were not being used.

Even as tankers and helicopters attacked the county's major fires Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-El Cajon, and reporters questioned whether California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection was using all the aircraft it could get - just as many did four years ago in the devastating October 2003 firestorms.

State fire officials denied the current allegations in a teleconference call with reporters Wednesday afternoon.

Aaron McClear, the governor's press secretary, said, "CalFire is utilizing every resource at its disposalo fight these fires … any suggestion to the contrary is inaccurate."

Meanwhile, the drama also played out at San Diego County's Emergency Operations Center - which has served as a government and emergency managers command center to coordinate help, track the fires and disseminate information to the public.

At 3 p.m., a visibly upset Hunter said as he entered the center that state fire officials were refusing to OK the use of National Guard C-130 air tankers that were sitting on tarmac ready to go - loaded with thousands of gallons of fire retardant.

"You explain it," he said. "CalFire said we really need to get the winds down so we can really hit the air. We now have the best planes in the world loaded with fire retardant on the runway - and silence from CalFire."

State fire officials at the operations center subsequently said that the tankers were actually up in the air - and in San Diego County - when Hunter made his remarks. But they only said so after reporters aggressively peppered them with questions about the aircraft issue, wanting to know how many aircraft were flying where.

At one point, the questions prompted county Supervisor Ron Roberts to jump back at reporters.

"I don't interrupt you, don't you interrupt me," Roberts said.

Prodded for numbers of aircraft by reporters who said there were reports of aircraft sitting unused on airstrips, state fire Chief Rick Hutchinson initially said at the 4 p.m. conference that they did not have exact numbers because new aircraft were coming on line.

However, by the end of the day Hutchinson said that counts from air commanders showed that 29 fixed-wing attack planes and air tankers - including the C-130s - were flying fire missions Wednesday, as well as 46 firefighting helicopters.

Questions about firefighting air support and state fire officials' willingness to use all options date back to the county's last fire disaster - the October 2003 wildfires that killed 16 people and destroyed more than 2,400 homes countywide.

During the height of those fires, Hunter and other local politicians sharply criticized then-Gov. Gray Davis and the state fire department for not moving quickly enough to get firefighting help to fight the firestorms - particularly military aerial help.

Hunter, the chairman of the powerful House Armed Services Committee, lost his own home in the fires. He had also arranged for federal C-130 air tankers to be used in those firefights, but they were delayed.

After the 2003 fires, the state fire department formed a partnership with the Navy and Marine Corps to train with their pilots, in the hope of streamlining the partnership process.

But this week, Hunter and Congressman Darrell Issa, R-Vista, and Brian Bilbray, R-Solana Beach, said they were once again unhappy that state fire officials were not using available military aircraft and pilots to mount aerial assaults on the fires - even though eight of the helicopters in use were federal National Guard aircraft.

On Tuesday night, the three congressmen held a press conference at the county's emergency operations center to announce they had reached a deal with state fire director Ruben Grijalva to waive a condition that a state strike team member had to be on all military aircraft in order for them to fly missions to fight the fires.

- Contact staff writer Gig Conaughton at (760) 739-6696 or gconaughton@nctimes.com.