Reuters has an excellent series of graphics showing how aircraft of all types are used on wildfires. The authors of the piece, Simon Scarr, Marco Hernandez, and Manas Sharma, must have spent days distilling a massive amount of data into easily digestible images, and in one case an animated graphic. Incredible work — check it out.
The image above is a time line showing the altitude of individual aircraft, from 1 p.m. on the left to 8 p.m. on the right. At about 7 p.m. there were 14 working, three OV-10s, seven S-2Ts, and four large air tankers. (In this graphic they transposed a couple of the characters in the model names of two tankers, but they get a pass for the overall great work.)
Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to Thomas.
Too bad for Coulson that Tanker 118 represented the C-130 fleet…
I hope for Cal-Fire that they don’t try and kill their C-130 program like they did when it belonged to the USFS.