By PAUL M. ROSS, JR.

A fast-moving fire in southern Oregon’s Illinois River Valley, as well as other initial-attack wildfires, challenged aerial and ground firefighters in late August. Late in the afternoon on Aug. 25, significant fine fuel loads allowed the Deer Creek Fire to race out of control three miles east of the small town of Selma and eight miles north of Cave Junction, Ore. Two Douglas DC-7 heavy airtankers on contract with the Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF), which were part of the initial aerial response to the blaze, utilized the Medford Airtanker Base for retardant reloads.

The Deer Creek Fire burned on more than 1,600 acres of dense forest mixed with homes, according to ODF spokesman Brian Ballou. “It started in the flats and moved east and northeast on both sides of Deer Creek Road for three-quarters of a mile,” he says. “Once it got up into [the] timber up there, it just took off. It’s a scattered interface area with a variety of fuel types [that threaten] structures fairly quickly when a fire breaks.”

Fire bosses utilized a multiple-resource air show on the second day of the fire that included Type 1 and 2 helicopters with buckets and two light helicopters.

Photo By PAUL M. ROSS, JR. Working alongside fixed-wing DC-7 heavy airtankers, helitankers like these Sikorsky Skycranes brought high-volume water and retardant drops to the Deer Creek Fire near Cave Junction, Ore., in late August.

The rotarywing aircraft helped ground units slow the fire by dipping from nearby Lake Selmac and making rapid-sequence aerial drops with quick turnaround times. At the height of the fire, 10 helicopters and four heavy airtankers fought the flames.

Two federally contracted airtankers from Chico, Calif.-based Aero Union Corp. joined ODF Tankers 60 and 62 (contracted from Oregon’s Butler Aircraft Inc.), dropping thousands of gallons of fire retardant. “We had all the retardant we wanted,” Ballou explains, “with good turnaround times thanks to the heavy airtankers being able to reload and operate from the Medford Airtanker Base. It has been busy at Medford [for] the past month.” Less than five years ago, fire aviation officials had considered closing the Medford base, but the facility remained open thanks to a substantial grassroots lobbying effort. “It seems like a good idea to have that base in service—the fires in this area are fast moving once they start, and minutes really count,” Ballou adds.

Officials established a unified command between a structural team from the state fire marshal’s office and an ODF incident management team. Given the intensity of the Deer Creek Fire, the Josephine County Fire Defense Chief requested that the Oregon State Fire Marshal’s Office invoke the State Conflagration Act; subsequently, the governor of Oregon declared the incident the first conflagration in the state since 2003. As a result, five counties sent structural protection task forces to the fire.

According to Ballou, the fire was very active, making big runs until 0100 HRS on Aug. 26, when an inversion layer, which affected air operations early on, reduced fire activity until mid-afternoon. Later, after the inversion had lifted, the northwest corner of the fire became active, and four airtankers again fought the flames until nightfall. At one point, flames threatened 102 residences and 123 outbuildings, forcing residents in the Davis Creek and Crook Creek drainages to evacuate the area. Officials reported the fire had destroyed three residences and 12 outbuildings; it later damaged two more homes and six other structures.

Ballou also reported that air units saw action prior to the Deer Creek Fire. “The tankers were busy this week,” he says, “first fighting a fire in the Applegate River country, [and] then another fire along Highway 140, the main east-west route over the Cascades in southern Oregon. “That Applegate area was traditionally agricultural, but now a lot of folks are living out there,” Ballou continues. “The fire started in the grass and was steaming up toward all those homes in the timber. Just as the flames were about to get into the heavy timber, our airtanker delivered its load, slowing the fire significantly in the fine fuels. The only thing lost was a storage shed.

“We’ve faced hot, dry weather but not excessive winds,” Ballou notes. “But the fine fuel loading from the spring rains has really caused these fires to move fast, even without the winds.”

Photo By PAUL M. ROSS, JR. Air Tractor single-engine airtankers like this AT-802A from Minnesota’s Aero Spray, Inc. also saw frequent fire responses in Oregon in late August.

Air-Attack Plane Crash Injures Three

In late July, an Aero Commander 680, which was being used for air attack and aerial fire reconnaissance missions on Nevada’s Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, crashed shortly after takeoff, injuring three people. According to a National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) preliminary investigation report, the aircraft (tail number N7UP) impacted terrain during takeoff at North Las Vegas Airport on July 21 at approximately 1707 HRS. The injured included pilot Jonathan Stairs, Air Tactical Group Supervisor (ATGS) Ron Rucker from Oregon’s Redmond Air Center and ATGS trainee Margery Kuehn-Tabor from Idaho’s Nez Perce National Forest.

Rucker sustained minor injuries while Stairs and Kuehn-Tabor were hospitalized in critical and serious condition, respectively. The NTSB reported that Commander Northwest Ltd. was operating the airplane under contract to the U.S. Forest Service for a fire-detection reconnaissance flight over the Spring Mountains National Recreation Area following lightning storms that affected the Las Vegas area during the previous 24 hours. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed, and a company flight plan had been filed.

During takeoff, witnesses reported seeing the airplane airborne, but not climbing. The craft continued down the runway in a nose-up attitude just above the tarmac until impacting terrain about 600 feet southeast from the departure end of runway 12R. The airplane impacted in a 30-degree nose-down attitude. During the accident sequence, the airplane rotated about 270 degrees around the vertical axis. The cockpit section of the airplane was destroyed during the accident sequence. The temperature at the time of departure was recorded at 107.1 degrees, with little to no winds (5 knots or less). The density altitude (altitude equivalent after correction for temperature and humidity) was calculated at 5,878 feet mean sea level, while pressure altitude (actual altitude at present location) stood at 2,361 feet. Higher-density altitudes require more performance from an aircraft, and, in the past, have contributed to crashes.

The NTSB reported that the first identified point of contact was a ground scar while the representative from the aircraft manufacturer, Aero Commander, identified the airplane wreckage at the beginning of the debris field as forward fuselage and cockpit structure components. Pieces of the left wing tip were found in the middle of the debris field. A final NTSB report on the crash investigation has not been released.

NorCal Copter Crews Assist During Great Basin Fires

Sean Cox, lead crewmember for the Lassen National Forest’s Chester Helitack, shared insight into a journey made by both the Chester and the Shasta-Trinity helitack teams to the Great Basin this summer. Staffed by a wide variety of line firefighting and fire aviation personnel, the helitack crews proved their mettle in attacking remote wildfires, serving as the core of successful incident aviation operations.

The two crews worked together on Arizona’s Tweedy Point Fire, accomplishing a wide variety of duties. “Basically, we demonstrated the effectiveness of both crews in providing multiple helibase positions, such as deck coordinator, aircraft radio operator, helibase manager, takeoff and landing coordinator and other jobs,” explains Cox. “And at the same time, [we] were able to provide effective fire hand crew and fireline incident command system (ICS) positions. Alex Stone from the Shasta-T. crew worked as division supervisor; Jeremy Stocks from Chester handled a crew boss trainee assignment; and myself and Robert Dauphinais hiked the firelines as dozer bosses. “The two crews received high praise from both air operations and the operations section chiefs for filling both their aviation and fireline roles,” Cox notes.

Chester Helitack also found itself to be one of the first-arriving aviation units on the Dammeron Complex Fire in Utah. “It was clear that a major aviation operation would be required for this incident, so it was important to get the helibase organization in place early, which we were able to do in the initial stages of the Dammeron,” Cox explains. His personnel staffed the aviation side with two helicopter managers and an air support/air operations supervisor, and they operated their exclusive-use Bell 212 helicopter. Concurrently, Chester sent a hand crew and a crew boss trainee out on the line where they operated from a spike camp.

“Overall,” Cox says, “this off-forest assignment really highlights the necessity and validity of large helitack crews and their ability to provide multiple ICS positions and get things done.”

Send your Fire Aviation News via phone or email 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.

Updates on Fire Aviation Folks...

Single-engine airtanker (SEAT) pilot and native Texan Charley Humphrey has been immersed in aviation all his life. A pilot as well as an airframe and power plant (A&P) aircraft mechanic, Humphrey caught the aviation bug from his grandfather. “I started flying in 1993 thanks in large part to knowing my grandfather, who served as a dive bomber squadron leader on the USS Intrepid during World War II,” he says.

His first pilot jobs included flying DC-3 and Convair cargo planes, hauling everything from chickens to explosives throughout Central America, Mexico and the United States. He presently flies firefighting missions for Arizona’s Western Pilot Services, crisscrossing the United States for the past three fire seasons in Dromadier, Thrush and Air Tractor aircraft. “I started early February in Arkansas,” Humphrey explains, “flying out of Hot Springs on a contract with the Arkansas Forestry Commission, then shifted to Arizona, where we were very busy.

“One of the memorable fires was the Goldwater in Arizona this year, where I was one of a group of seven SEATs that dropped 120,000 gallons of fire retardant in a single day,” Humphrey continues. “Most of the fire was inaccessible due to it being on a bombing range, so it was a large air show.”

And Humphrey sees parallels between his aerial suppression work and his grandfather’s naval aviation missions. “Fire’s the best flying job I’ve ever had as it’s a very dynamic environment. You’re cranking and banking the whole time. I think it’s as close to flying a World War II fighter mission as you can get—without getting shot at, of course.”