![]() ![]() The Hawks, equipped with a hoist and a 250-foot cable for rescues, give CAL FIRE “a weapon it never had before,” he said. Wildfires sometimes die down at night, with lower temperatures and lighter winds affording “an ideal time to attack the fire,” said Jake Serrano, CAL FIRE battalion chief at the Sonoma County airport helitack base. “It’s crowded up there.”ĭuring the Kincade fire last year, CAL FIRE reported helicopters had dropped 2 million gallons of water and air tankers had unleashed 1 million gallons of retardant. ![]() Helicopters are the ribs, dropping water to extinguish the fire as dozers and ground crews work below, Brown said. Tankers are the backbone of the operation, spreading bright pink retardant ahead of the flames to coat fuel and slow the blaze. On large wildfires, there can be 20 or more helicopters aloft, along with a dozen or more fixed-wing tankers and air tactical supervisors in three small single-engine aircraft directing the air assault through radio contact with pilots and firefighters on the ground. “All of us know what a relief it is to see our aerial cavalry arrive.” “It has become crystal clear that the status quo has become unacceptable,” he said. In the last five years, wildfires have scorched more than 5 million acres in California, an area larger than Sonoma, Napa, Lake and Mendocino counties combined. “It’s about damn time we’re making these new investments,” he said, calling the Hawks “game changers that can help us combat this new reality of megafires.”ĭespite the rash of calamitous Northern California wildfires since 2015, McGuire said it took “an enormous push” to secure funding for the new helicopters. Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg, whose district has been hit by seven major wildfires since 2015. The $288 million purchase came at an opportune time, said state Sen. With the arrival of the Hawks, the agency has the first nighttime capacity since the aviation program began with converted crop dusters deployed as air tankers in the 1950s. The Super Hueys could fly at night, but CAL FIRE decided against using the 50-year-old single-engine copters for firefighting or rescues in darkness, Brown said. There’s scant margin for error with helicopters operating at 500 feet and dropping water at about 50 feet over rugged terrain with obstacles including power lines. The pilot’s green-tinted view of the ground lacks detail, and the goggles afford no peripheral vision. ![]() Forest Service firefighter, supervisor and aviation safety officer and joined CAL FIRE in 2009 after a mandatory federal retirement. “Flying at night has its own set of hazards,” said Brown, who worked for 38 years as a U.S. Larry Groff of Windsor and another pilot, Lars Stratte of Redding, were killed when their CAL FIRE air tankers collided over a fire near Hopland in 2001. ![]()
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