Intro to helitack

What is helitack? I looked at a couple of sources, the Interagency Standards for Fire and Aviation Operations Guide aka Red Book (chapter 16 on aviation), the Interagency Helicopter Operations Guide (glossary), to name a couple, to see how helitack was defined. The result is this definition:

Helitack: helicopter attack. The use of helicopters to transport crews, equipment, and fire retardants or suppressants (class A foam) to the fireline during initial attack. The term also refers to the crew that performs helicopter management and attack activities. Helitack crews may also be used in “all risk” activities such as search and rescue, law enforcement and medical transportation.

I have already written about the role helicopters play in initial attack with foam/water drops, either by fixed tank helicopters or helicopters with bambi buckets. The Erickson AirCrane is an example of the role of retardant carrying helitankers in extended attack. I want to spend a little time talking about the role helicopters play in transporting crews (aka helitack crews) and equipment to fires.

Where federal agencies are concerned, helitack crew size varies by agency. The National Park Service and the US Forest Services sets their crew size regionally while the minimum Bureau of Land Management (BLM) crew size for exclusive use contracts is seven (supervisor, assistant, squad leader, and four temporaries).

As for State agencies, I believe that California has nine helitack crews at various locations through out the State -- including one based at Ryan-Hemet Air Attack base -- with ten crew members each (not including the pilot). See this CAL FIRE document for more information. Idaho (Idaho Department of Lands) has a helitack crew with 7 to 9 crew members based in Coeur D’ Alene Air Terminal in Hayden, Idaho.

I am still working out the other posts that I will be making in this series on helitack. But, please stay tuned for more.

Regarding the video that I embedded, it is a two minute highlight reel of the Fort Howes 2005 helitack season. I went searching for Fort Howes helitack on the internet. According to this post, the equipment and crew of this helitack base may have moved to Miles City, MT in 2007.

Note: At the time of this posting, the links that I provided for the Red Book and the Interagency Helicopter Operations Guide, both at nifc.gov, were down. But they did work earlier today.

References:

Redbook (2009) Chapter 16: Aviation Operations, accessed on June 30, 2009 from http://www.nifc.gov/policies/red_book.htm
Interagency Helicopter Operations Guide (2006), Glossary, accessed on June 30 2009 from http://www.nifc.gov/ihog/