The Orange County Sheriff’s Department has taken over the county’s helicopter rescue operations after talks disintegrated with the county fire authority in the turf war over who should conduct air rescues. Sheriff Sandra Hutchens said this week that her department has not renewed an agreement that named the Orange County Fire Authority as the primary agency in handling air rescues in remote wilderness and park areas. Though that arrangement worked for years, with the Fire Authority handling rescues in the county, in the past two years the two departments have clashed, with Sheriff’s Department helicopters and Fire Authority helicopters jockeying in the air to be the first to arrive at wilderness rescue calls. The feuding has led to dangerous confrontations between the two agencies during rescues and has set the stage for a potential collision. The fighting has become so heated that firefighters have accused sheriff’s pilots of harassment.