Tim Crippin sent us these photos he took at Medford, Oregon June 17, 2019 of air tankers working the Lumgrey Fire on the Klamath National Forest in Northern California.
Thanks Tim!
Air tankers at Medford during Lumgrey Fire
Tag: T-94
Air tankers at Medford fighting the Klamathon Fire
Above: T-93 departs Medford, Oregon for the Klamathon Fire in California. All photos by Tim Crippin July 5, 2018.
Tim Crippin took these photos July 5 of eight air tankers that were fighting the Klamathon Fire and reloading at Medford, Oregon.
As of Friday morning the fire just across the state line in California had burned approximately 8,000 acres and multiple structures. A civilian who has not yet been identified died in the fire.
Continue reading “Air tankers at Medford fighting the Klamathon Fire”
Photos of CAL FIRE S-2’s at Medford
Above: Tanker 95 departs from Medford. Photo by Tim Crippin.
Tim Crippin sent us these photos of CAL FIRE air tankers 94 and 95 loading and departing out of Medford, Oregon on June 18 while the tankers were working the Bogus Fire near Copco Lake in Northern California.
Thanks Tim!
New paint for Tanker 66
Tim Crippin sent us the photo above of Erickson’s Tanker 66, saying it just returned to Medford, Oregon after getting a new paint job at Phoenix Goodyear Airport.
The photo below is what it looked like a year ago. It is our understanding that Tanker 60 will get the same paint scheme very soon.
The paint is similar to the three Erickson MD-87s:
Aircraft at Redding, August 7, 2014
We spent some time yesterday at the Redding Air Attack Base in California and shot photos of the aircraft and will be posting them over the next few days. Here are a few to get started. Click on the photos to see slightly larger versions.
All of the photos were taken by Bill Gabbert and are protected by copyright.
Sacramento aircraft
We had an opportunity to photograph some of the aircraft at McClellan Air Force base today. Click on the photos to see larger versions.
Air tanker fleet beefed up in California
There is an extremely rare site in the photo above, at least in recent years — two DC-7 air tankers on active duty at an air tanker base in California. CAL FIRE has arranged for them to be on contract so that their 23 S-2T air tankers can rotate in for their annual maintenance. The wildland fire season in the state does not appear to be ending, so they had to do something to provide the needed maintenance for their airborne firefighting fleet while the fire danger remains high.
The state of Oregon routinely uses DC-7 air tankers, but the federal government stopped contracting for them a number of years ago.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Forest Service in recent days has had a couple of P2V air tankers on duty. Yesterday Tanker 910, one of the two DC-10 11,600-gallon air tankers operated by 10 Tanker Air Carrier, was brought over from Albuquerque to be available at Santa Maria, California.
