Columbia helos find plenty of work amid slower season
PHOTOS PAUL M. ROSS, JR.
Columbia Helicopter’s Boeing BV-107 Vertols (pictured above) and BV-234 Chinook helicopters remained busy in 2005 as they make up a significant portion of the national “heavy” helicopter fleet. |
Aircraft from Portland, Ore.'s Columbia Helicopters Inc. (CHI) saw action across the United States in 2005, even though the fire season proved less intense than prior years.
"Despite heavy growth of underbrush from spring rains and dire predictions, the summer fire season did not blow up as expected," says CHI's Dan Sweet. "When fires did start, the U.S. Forest Service responded immediately with effective use of aerial and ground units. Interestingly, this is something many Type 1 helicopter operators, including CHI, have been advocating for years."
CHI also took part in its share of initial attacks this summer; at one point in August, seven CHI helicopters battled various wildfires. CHI's Boeing 234 Chinook, call sign N245CH, worked for the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) under an exclusive-use contract. Despite being based out of the Oakridge, Ore. airport, the aircraft spent little time there.
Instead, it worked eight fires in four states. It was also on standby in Oregon and Nevada, prepared to handle initial-attack duties if fires started during extreme weather conditions.
In addition, CHI's BV-107 Vertols, N185CH and N191CH, worked eight and five fires, respectively. N194CH, N6672D, C-FHFW and N192CH also spent time on the firelines.
To date, CHI has provided aircraft to 21 fires this season, six of which occurred in Oregon, five in Nevada, three each in Utah and California, two in Montana, and one fire each in Alaska and Washington. But the Blossom Complex in southern Oregon holds this season's record for the longest number of days fire personnel utilized a CHI aircraft, when the USFS engaged N245CH for 20 days in August.
Out of all the fires CHI aircraft responded to, only the Dear Fire, which occurred near Willows, Calif., was large enough to require three CHI Vertols. Three additional fires required two CHI helicopters.
Erickson helitankers can deliver more than 2,000 gallons of water in a single drop and proved effective on several fires last year. |
Erickson Helitankers Assist in WFU Ops
Sikorsky S-64E and F Model helitankers from Oregon-based Erickson Air-Crane Inc. logged significant firefighting hours this past spring, summer and fall, crisscrossing the Western United States to suppress wildland/urban interface fires as well as participate in a tactic known as wildland fire use (WFU), which reintroduces fire to ecosystems nationwide.
Erickson has flown suppression missions on fires for decades, providing high-volume water drops from its fleet of Sikorsky Skycrane helicopters. The company developed the industry's first water- and retardant-dropping tank system, which led to creation of the "helitanker," now an industry standard. In 1992, Erickson also became the type certificate holder of the Sikorsky S-64 Aircrane series of helicopters.
Today, Erickson assists firefighters in controlling fires, as well as reintroducing fires in wildlands, simulating the vital role fire historically played in the ecosystem. For centuries, periodic fires swept all parts of the western United States, reducing fuel loads and allowing new growth. In the WFU management strategy, a naturally ignited fire is allowed to burn with minimal intervention from firefighters in order to bring the beneficial effects of fire to the land.
As stated in federal fire management policies, WFU may be used to accomplish a number of resource management tasks, from reducing fuel hazards to achieving specific responses from fire-dependent plant species, such as the regeneration of aspen. Often, multiple fire-protection and resource-management benefits are achieved concurrently.
One particular benefit of WFU is the reduction of heavy fuel loading — crowded small trees and brush — in the nation's wildlands. Heavy fuels have contributed to several notable fires in recent years, causing them to burn out of control, with devastating results.
Helitankers' high-volume water drops allow firefighters to maintain control of WFU fires, yet still "treat" areas previously identified for the reintroduction of fire. For example, in August and September, Erickson helitankers responded to the Granite Complex Fire, a WFU incident on the Idaho/Oregon border in Hell's Canyon Wilderness and Hell's Canyon National Recreation Area (NRA). Eventually spreading to more than 38,000 acres, the Granite Fire burned in an area previously designated for the reintroduction of fire. During this incident, helitankers proved vital in allowing firefighters to keep flames in check. At the tactical level, Erickson used its self-filling water/retardant tanks to deliver precise, high-volume aerial drops to firefighters conducting several large burnout operations. Working with ground crews, Erickson helitankers kept spot fires and flames from overrunning containment lines, allowing the fire to burn in appropriate areas but not allowing it to escape fire managers' maximum management area. On other sectors of the fire, when flames approached certain areas identified as trigger points, firefighters and helitankers again teamed up to stop the blaze or "herd" it away from a boundary line.
According to federal reports, many other parts of the United States and North America need immediate treatment of both live and dead vegetation to prevent large-scale, high-intensity fires and to sustain healthy ecosystems. Officials recognize the importance of implementing a variety of treatment methods to cost-effectively reduce fuel hazards, achieve ecosystem health and gain resource benefits; Erickson is prepared to support these treatment methods with aerial platforms such as the Skycrane. (Note: Fire is just one method of fuel management and certainly is not a suitable tool in many areas of the nation.)
As invaluable as it is to reintroduce fire, the wildland/urban interface dictates that wildland firefighters must continue to aggressively suppress fires, and Erickson aircraft have met that need time and again this year. Following numerous responses throughout the West last summer, helitankers also responded during Southern California's fall fire season. In late September, Helitanker 748 was among several Erickson aircraft working fires, including the 24,000-acre Topanga Fire in Los Angeles and Ventura counties.
Aggressive utilization of the helitanker along with brush clearance ordinances allowed firefighters to protect more than 2,000 threatened residences, losing only three homes. Helitanker 736 also responded to a fire in the Burbank area, making high-volume aerial drops to douse flames burning above residences.
Erickson helitankers and aircraft with like capabilities are also primary tools for reducing costs during these incidents, controlling these blazes with high-volume delivery yet low-cost (per gallon) water or retardant drops.
Working at the remote Slate Helibase near White Bird, Idaho, an Erickson Air-Crane chief/mechanic rinses residue from Helitanker 736 following a mission on the Granite Complex WFU Fire. |
Bombardier Resumes Making "Scoopers"
After a long suspension, Bombardier Aerospace has resumed manufacturing its line of CL-415 "Scooper" amphibious airtankers. Earlier this year, employees returned to Bombardier's North Bay, Ontario plant temporarily to complete three water bombers, but the company now feels future firefighting demand dictates a return to full production. Most returning workers are among those laid off in 2003 after the company suspended operations pending the sale of new aircraft.
In a late-October statement, the Montreal-based company said work resumed in the company's North Bay facility after the first CL-415 water bomber arrived from Montreal. At peak operations in prior years, the North Bay assembly plant handled six CL-415 water bombers annually, employing approximately 80 people.
The company considered completing the three water bombers at its amphibious aircraft facility in Montreal but decided to do the work in North Bay, which has long been the location for final assembly.
Bombardier developed the CL-415 following the success of its popular piston-engine, 1,400-gallon capacity CL-215, which was introduced in 1969. Since the aircraft's first flight in 1993, Bombardier has produced 56 turbo-prop CL-415s for customers across the globe. Powered by twin Pratt and Whitney Canada PW123af engines, the aircraft refills its internal 1,600-gallon water tank by skimming the surface of a lake and "scooping" water through water scoops on the underside of the fuselage. (Fire aviation myth busters take note: The scoops on the CL-415 and CL-215 are just inches in diameter with grates on the front, making it impossible for any SCUBA divers to be scooped up by these aircraft and dropped on a fire.) A four-door tank system with foam injection allows variable drops on fires.
The Los Angeles County Fire Department typically leases two CL-415s during the height of its fire season each summer and fall. Other Bombardier aircraft operate in Canada and several European countries.
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Updates on Fire Aviation Folks…
Colorado firefighter Tracy Elliott enjoys being immersed in nature's extremes. She fights wildfires across the West as a helitack firefighter each summer, then cools off each winter as a ski instructor in Aspen, Colo. A Telluride, Colo., native, Elliott began her firefighting career on a hand crew on the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forests' Paonia Ranger District. She also worked engine, timber, trail improvement, range management and wilderness guard assignments before transferring to Colorado's Rifle Helitack in 1997 as a senior firefighter.
Most recently, Elliott has staffed a helicopter manager position with Helitanker 736, based at Jeffco Airport in Broomfield, Colo. She also worked regularly this season with Erickson pilots Ken Chapman, Fran Tebbe and the rest of the Erickson traveling team. Early-season fires took the helitanker to Arizona for numerous blazes. "We spent time in Phoenix, Sierra Vista and Kingman," Elliot says. "Essentially, we made the whole circuit of the state during their heavy-fire activity this spring and summer."
Once the Arizona action slowed, the aircraft moved north to fires in Pueblo and Montrose, Colo. as well as Rapid City, S.D. Following two days at their Jeffco base, Elliott flew with the helitanker to fires in Challis, Idaho and Cle Elum, Wash., eventually ending in Joseph, Ore., where the aircraft worked the Granite Complex.
"I like initial-attack fires best and being part of a team. Getting out in the mountains [and] fighting fires is great. And staffing the helitanker allows [me] to see parts of the country I otherwise would not get to visit," Elliott says. |
Send your Fire Aviation News via phone or e-mail to Paul M. Ross, Jr., Wildland Firefighter Magazine, at 208/861-1340 or prossjr@yahoo.com.
Paul M. Ross, Jr. is a firefighter/EMT/helitack squad leader and professional writer with 14 years of experience in both Western U.S. wildland firefighting and urban fire-rescue. He lives in St. Louis, Mo., where he is a firefighter/EMT for the Eureka Fire Protection District. Contact him at prossjr@yahoo.com.
