MAFFS crews gearing up for annual training

This year the annual certification and refresher training for the Modular FireFighting System (MAFFS) crews from all four Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve bases will take place at one location, the Channel Islands Air National Guard Station in Ventura County, California (map) beginning May 1. That will begin the transition for the Reno base that recently became a MAFFS unit, a process that is expected to take three to five fire seasons according to the National Guard Bureau. The other two MAFFS bases (other than Reno and Channel Islands) are at Cheyenne and Colorado Springs.

The 146th Airlift Wing, below, is based at Channel Islands Air National Guard Station in southern California.

California aviators discover the birth of a large fire

In this video civilians on some kind of aviation adventure discover and report what turned out to be the Washington Fire southeast of Lake Tahoe near Markleeville, California. They reported it on June 19, 2015 and by June 23 the fire had burned over 16,000 acres.

The map below shows heat from the fire detected by a satellite on June 21, 2015.

Washington Fire
Heat (the red and brown squares) detected by a satellite on the Washington Fire at 3:50 p.m. PT, June 21, 2015

More information about the Washington Fire.

Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to David.

View of a SEAT from another SEAT

single engine air tanker
Tanker 855 flown by Dave Bright, as seen from Tanker 873, piloted by Fred Celest. Photo by Fred Celest.

Fred Celest sent us this photo he took with his cell phone while he was returning from the 16 Mile Fire in eastern Pennsylvania for a load and return. Both planes are operated by New Frontier Aviation out of Fort Benton, Montana. The single engine air tankers are Air Tractor 802s with Garret-14 engines.

We’ve written about T-873 a couple of times before.

Thanks Fred.

Douglas County, Colorado renews contracts for firefighting aircraft

Douglas County, just south of Denver (map), recently renewed contracts with four fire aviation companies. The agreements are Call When Needed (CWN) and will only be activated when the aircraft are specifically needed.

Three of the contracts are for helicopters, with Rampart Helicopter ServicesHeliQwest International and Trans Aero Ltd. The other is for the 11,600-gallon DC-10 Very Large Air Tankers operated by 10 Tanker Air Carrier.

“Due to the strong possibility of continued dry conditions in and around Douglas County, coupled with the limited air resource availability in the region for the purpose of fighting wildland fire, it is imperative that we have every resource possible available to us,” said the County’s Director of Emergency Management Tim Johnson.

Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to Bean.

Alberta cuts wildfire suppression budget by $15 million

The cuts mean air tanker contracts end on August 16.

Air Spray executives
Ravi Saip and Paul Lane in front of one of their Electras at Chico, California, on March 21, 2014. Photo by Bill Gabbert.

Below is an excerpt from an article at CBCnews:

With wildfires already spreading in Alberta, one air tanker company is raising the alarm on cuts to the province’s fire suppression budget.
Paul Lane, the vice president of Air Spray, said the company’s contract was cut by 25 per cent in the recent budget.

“The province has reduced the operating contracts, for not just us but the other air tanker operator, from 123 days to 93 days,” he said.

“Effectively that will mean that all the air tanker assets in Alberta will come up contract by August 16. The province has no guarantee of availability after that period of those air tanker assets.”

The province reduced the overall wildfire suppression budget by about $15 million.

Premier Rachel Notley said the budget reflects base levels of funding and that emergency funds will kick in if needed for more fire suppression.

“All that happened is a high level of expenditure engaged last year because of the high level of fires was reduced back to the normal amount,” she said. ..

USFS Twin Otters refreshed for 2016

Above: N143Z, better known as Jump 43, showing off a new paint job at McCall, Idaho, April 18, 2016. Photo by Stuart Palley.

Yesterday Stuart Palley spotted two U.S. Forest Service Twin Otter smokejumper planes at the McCall, Idaho jumper base, N141Z and N143Z. They were sporting new paint jobs but that was not all that was new. Jennifer Jones, a spokesperson for the USFS, told us that over the last two years they have received new nose gears, nose wheel steering actuators, fuel bladder tanks, fuel pumps, and floor boards.

Annually, the U.S. Forest Service Intermountain Region mechanics go over each aircraft and make sure that they are prepared, equipped, and ready for the upcoming fire season.

Dehavilland DHC-6-300 Twin Otters were manufactured in 1974 and 1984. Even though the USFS has acquired a bunch of military surplus C-23B Sherpas for smokejumping and other purposes, they plan to hang on to a couple of the Twin Otters. One of the reasons is they have better performance at higher elevation airports.

Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to Stuart.

Video from the inside of a helicopter water bucket

This is a firefighting point of view I had not seen before — video shot from inside a helicopter’s water bucket, sometimes called by the brand name Bambi Bucket. Thanks go out to Jeff Currier.

As a bonus here is another video uploaded by Mr. Currier about dipping water out of a frozen lake —  something you don’t see every day.

And below, we see a bucket drop on a real fire near Lubec, Maine May 7, 2015.