Looking at aviation in wildland fire fighting: Intro

I have gotten interested in the role of air support or the use airplanes and helicopters in fighting wildfires. My hope is to start writing about air support with a series of posts focusing on some of the types of aircraft currently in use in the United States in fighting wildland fires. In a perfect world I would post pictures, videos, and specifications of the aircraft. I'm not sure if I will be able to find videos of some of the aircraft that I want to write about If I'm not sure about the specifications, I won't post the specs. But, I am finding that it is not all that hard to find pictures of aircraft on the web from the websites of wildland fire fighting agencies.

Those of you who have seen pictures of wildland fires on television or in newspapers have probably seen pictures of single or multi-engine aircraft or airtankers flying over wildland fires. Helicopters are also used in fighting wildland fires. Both types of aircraft may be used in observation. Helicopters are frequently used to transport wildland firefighters. Then there is the smokejumper program where wildland firefighters parachute into remote areas to fight wildland fires. On the theory that a picture is worth a thousand words, I'm going to count on the pictures (or videos) telling a story of how the aircraft are used to fight wildland fires.

Because I am just beginning this endeavor, I'm not quite sure how long it will be between making posts on different types of aircraft used to fight wildfires. Given the volume of reading material that I have on wildland fire aviation, I suspect that I will have other aviation related issues to write about.

I am going to start with air craft used by the New Jersey Forest Fire Service, hopefully in within a couple of days. Stay tuned ...