However I recall hearing the same words from the same retired military officer Lieutenant Colonel James "Bo" Gritz, one-time member of the Green Berets.
I heard Col. Gritz on KSFO San Francisco in the days when they were mostly local hosts, I would say that most likely the KSFO host was Geoff Metcalf in the late 1990s.
Here's what Col. Gritz reported about a man he knows as the man observed a helicopter near the Weaver "compound" from a place he stood overlooking the Weaver "compound".
"First of all on the fuel tank, this was most interesting--a man named Jack, owns a higher terrain uh, a mountain right beside Randy; you can look down on Randy's home. He had some media up there with him and they had a video camera. On second day of the seize uh, a helicopter came up, and it had a uh, a fuel bladder uh, that they--the helicopter came up and was hovering over the cabin. The concern was, that they [Government] were going to dump the fuel on the cabin, and then simply uh, incinerate it. Uh, Jack who owns the land up there, said he started jumping up and down, and waving arms. The pilot noticed them, they had a video camera, and so the pilot pointed that out to authorities, and the, the mission was aborted. Now, they might say they were delivering the fuel up to top of the hill to be used by generators or whatever by the Federal Forces. But if that was so, why did the aircraft abort and go on back and land down in the valley? Kind of interesting."
BTW during the real Congressional hearings on Ruby Ridge the federal agents were careful to refer to the Weaver home as a "compound;" even quickly correcting themselves if they slipped up and referred to it as what it was, a cabin.
It seems that the majority of fed seiges against U.S. citizens end with fire. Makes sense. Its the best way to destroy the evidence of their screw-ups.