Humboldt was crazy
Bert, in 82-83 I was flying a UH-1B in Humboldt, and we had to fly with two door gunners. We only had M-16's but it was a deterrent to stop most of the ground fire.
In early '82 we did a night departure from an old mill east of Garberville. Going through about 200' all we saw were "flash bulbs" on the surface, until we turned off the strobe and nav lights. Then like magic, the "flash bulbs" ceased. We turned them on again momentarily to confirm, and sure enough, the "flash bulbs" reappeared.
Needless to say we did not fly with lights on anymore at night.
One time flying a C-182RG it was real hot, so we opened the side windows. We were at roughly 1500 ft. AGL, slow flying with the prop running at about 1500 rpm (real quiet). In that configuration we could heard ground fire. This was over Island Mountain S/E of Garberville.
Those were the days!