super scoopers in So. CA

At the time I originally wrote this article, there was a video (no longer available from CBS2/KCAL on the arrival of two CL-415 "super scoopers" from Canada to assist in working the fires in southern CA. The reporter mentions that a "super scooper" based at Lake Elsinore, that is the Martin "Hawaii" Mars is also available to assist in these efforts.

I have been checking various live video streams, shot from news helicopters, of the wildfires. Some awesome flames. The stream that I am watching know from CBS2/KCAL9 is showing a fire buring near residential neighborhood, just saw a helitanker fly by.

Edited on September 8, 2014 to remove dead links.

Mt. Wilson Observatory

Wildfires continue to burn near the historic Mt. Wilson, observatory. Wildfires were expected to overrun the observatory and the nearby communications towers last night. The LA Times reports that brush clearance by ground crews last night along with retardant drops may have helped, at least in the short term. However, the danger to Mt. Wilson is fair from over.

The observatory dates back to 1904 and is of historical significance, it is where Edwin Hubble worked, to learn a little about the observatory, go here. From what I understand, Observatory personnel were evacuated yesterday.

Death of two LA County Firefighters

It is with deep sadness that I write of the death of two LA County Firefighters who died an vehicle crash while working the Station fire in the Mt. Gleason area near Acton CA.

On September 8, 2014 I deleted links that are no longer available. But I did find this link to a Sept 1, 2009 story written by Bill Gabbert.

I offer my heartfelt condolences to the families, friends, and colleagues of these two fine men.

Station Fire: 6 PM EDT

Of course, this assumes that feed that I am still watching is of the Station Fire. Anyway, I am getting ready to sign off but before I do I want to give you an approximate count of the tankers and helos that I have seen since my earlier (5;15 PM) post.

1. three water/foam drops by an Air Crane (helitanker).
2. three water/foam drops by a smaller fixed tank helicopter.
3. at least two drops by what appears to be an Aero Union P-3. The qualification here is because I lost the stream for a couple of minutes while a P-3 may have been making a retardant drop.

Station Fire 5:15 PM EDT

I am watching live video feed from the CBS affliate in LA CBS2/KCAL9. I have been watching this stream for about 45 minutes and have seen a couple of helos and a couple of CAL Fire Tankers working the fire. And some pretty impressive flames. The image is from the webcam on the Wilson Observatory.

A friend who used to fly tankers in southern California told me in an e-mail this afternoon:

This ones going to burn like hell for a few more days. I've had the opportunity to fly this area in years past. You can't put groundpounders in most of those areas due to the terrain. Most canyons are at 45 degrees or steeper. This fire will be an airshow for the most part. Current wind direction is only allowing aircraft to be used on the North and Northwestern side of the fire. Heavy smoke is obscuring the other flanks of the fire. Never fly where you can't see. This includes the helo's as well.

The streaming from this site can be sporadic. So, if you go to the above link and don't get anything, try back later. That is what I did, and I finally got a stream. Remember the news helo has to refuel, change crews, and the like.

Station Fire

I understand from a knowledgeable friend that one the DC-10 tankers was deployed to the Station Fire yesterday, currently burning the Angeles National Forest outside LA. I spent awhile watching videos from a local news outlet. And my friend has told me that he has seen footage of the DC-10 tanker working the fire.

When I am able to find some video footage of the DC-10 tanker working one of these fires, I will post the link here.

September 8, 2014: invalid links have been deleted

DC-10 making drops on Gloria Fire

One of the DC-10 tankers made three retardant drops this past Friday and one drop on Thursday afternoon working the Gloria Fire near Soledad CA.

Sept 8, 2014: link to local video of DC-10 Tanker drop was deleted because the link is no longer valid.

Air drop on La Brea fire

And here is some very awesome footage of an AeroUnion P-3 (tanker 27?) making a drop on the La Brea Fire.

Updated on August 3, 2015: The US Forest Service terminated its contract with Aero-Union for their Lockheed P-3's, going out of business a month later. (see my articles of July 30, 2011, August 17, 2011, and January 18, 2012). 

La Brea Fire

You may recall that I wrote about the La Brea fire that was burning in Southern California a couple of weeks ago. This is an eight minute video of the fire with some footage of tankers and helicopters flying to or from the fire. The latest update on this from from inciweb, the national incident reporting system may be found here.

More fires burning in Southern California

Bill Gabbert of Wildfire Today News is currently reporting on the wildfires burning in Southern California. For those of you checking here after the fact, go back on his website to about August 25, and start from there.

While there, I noted that Bill had embeded the above video from motherlode.com on a fire burning in Yosemite. This fire, Big Meadows, is an escaped presribed burn. Bill reports on this in more detail here. You may also go to this post by Capt. Mike on the firefighter blog for information on the Big Meadows fire in Yosemite.

Thanks Bill and Capt. Mike.

SEAT crash in Greece

It is with great sorrow that I write to pay my respects to the family, friends, colleagues, and the people of Greece as they mourn the death of Colonel Stergios Kotoulas. Col. Kotoulas, who had thousands of hours of flight experience, died on Aug. 27 when the SEAT he was flying crashed Ionian Sea close to the Greek island of Kefalonia while he was flying fires in Greece. I believe that he was flying a Dromader M-18.

For more information may be found here.

Capt. Mike wrote about the fires in Greece on his firefighter blog here.

RIP Col. Kotoulas. May you and your plane always fly in favorable winds.

A visit from a smokejumper

I get e-mail alerts when someone comments on my blog. The other day, I was delighted to hear from Bjorn, a smokejumper who jumped for the BLM in Alaska this year after four years a jumper for the Forest Service. Bjorn commented on a post I made here on July 20, part 2 of 2 on about smokejumping. Note his comment. He knew Scott Wickland of the four minute video that I posted. Scott, or Wicky gave a four minute video tour of smokejumping out of the Northern Cascades Smokejumping Base in Winthrop WA.

Bjorn has a blog that may be found here. He started the blog this year, and he is able to do something that I can not. He writes about his experience as a smokejumper this season. Please check it out. He writes about the three-week training he went through and has some awesome photos.

SEAT crash: 6 PM update

The Sierra Interagency Dispatch Center has released the name of the pilot. The BLM identifed the pilot as Dave Jamsa of Missoula Montana. He leaves a wife and four chidren. Here is the article that I wrote about earlier where you can go for more information.

Dave, rest in peace and may you experience favorable winds. My tears, thoughts, and prayers are with Dave's wife and children, the rest of his family, Minuteman Aviation, his friend and colleagues.

SEAT crash (Hoyt Fire): update

I ran across a newspaper article reporting the name of the pilot that was killed in yesterday's SEAT. However, out of respect for the pilot's family, I am going to hold off on linking to this article.

However, I also run across this press release from the BLM about the SEAT crash.

Evergreen 747 demo drop in Spain

I want to thank Carlos, who was flying an AT-802 on the same fire in Spain where the Evergreen 747 did a demo drop last month. He did not see the drop, but reports that a forestry technician told him that the drop was no good. Going on to say that it was a tough day with very strong winds. To read his comment and my response, see the comments on this post.

Updated on August 3, 2015: According to Bill Gabbert's May 2nd (2014) article on Fire Aviation it seems that Evergreen has declared bankruptcy.

SEAT crash on Hoyt Fire in NV

It saddens me to write of the crash of an Air Tractor AT-802A in the mountains in Churchill County Nevada while fighting the Hoyt Fire. The pilot was airlifted to a hospital where he was pronounced dead. See this article for more information.

The aircraft was owned by Minuteman aviation

I offer my condolences to the family, friends, colleagues, and those at Minuteman Aviation for your loss.

May you fly in favorable winds and be at peace.

Forest History Society Archives and Mann Gulch

I was in the land of no internet access on August 5, the 60th anniversary of the Mann Gulch Fire where 13 firefighters died, 12 of whom were smokejumpers. Some of you may recall that my introduction to wildland fire books was Norman Maclean’s “Young Men and Fire”, where he tells the story of the Mann Gulch fire, and his own investigations over the course of 40 years.

As fate would have it, Carl A. made a comment on my entry on smokejumper history dated August 5. In his comment, that some of you may have read, he said:

Great post! You should also check out some of the Smokejumping history resources at the Forest History Society. A recent post on their blog about Mann Gulch links to some of their online sources on the: August 5, 1949: Mann Gulch Tragedy .

I was intrigued by the Forest History Society, so I followed Carl’s lead and have spent a little time checking out some of the resources available. I have to say that the forty-five minutes or so that I spent on this website does not do it justice.

Martin Mars working the La Brea Fire in CA

The Martin Mars is (or was over the weekend) working the La Brea Fire that is burning in California. It is based at Lake Cachuma. For more information go here and here.

La Brea fire

If you want to see some awesome photos of the La Brea fire that is still burning in California, including some shots of tankers working the fire, check out Wildfire Today News on August 13 to August 15. Bill has posted some good pictures, including some screen shots from live video feed.

Martin Mars training runs in So CA

I was looking around to see if there were any recent youtube videos of the Martin Mars. I found this video, thanks to Bill Gabbert of Wildland Today News who made apost last weekof this video of the Martin Mars doing training runs and re-currency runs in Southern California. According to Bill some of this video was shot in infrared. It is an amazing video.

great photo of an AirCrane

Bill Gabbert of Wildfire Today News posted this great photo of an AirCrane. Check it out!

Evergreen 747 tanker: free demo drops

I saw a report on the Associated Airtanker Pilots message board last month (from a Spanish newspaper article translated into English) that Evergreen's 747 supertanker, currently under a call when needed contract (CWN) in California traveled to Spain last month to make a demonstration drop on Poyatos fire that was burning in a mountainous area of Spain. The 747 super tanker then traveled to Alaska where she made a second free demonstration drop on the Railbelt Fire.

Bill Gabbert of Wildfire Today reported on the 747 supertanker's drops on the Railbelt fire here.

Updated on August 3, 2015: According to Bill Gabbert's May 2nd (2014) article on Fire Aviation it seems that Evergreen has declared bankruptcy. Assoicated Airtanker Pilots is now called Associated Aerial Firefighters, the message board that I had linked to in this article is no longer available.

I'm back

I returned from the land of no easy internet access a couple of days ago. I have a couple of more posts to make on the topic of what wildland fire crews do, both are about books that I have read or am reading. I have a backlog of aerial wildland fire news to catch up on.

I'll be writing a post about Stephen J. Pyne's book, Fire on the Rim: A Firefighter's Season at the Grand Canyon in a couple of hours. I wrote it out in long hand. I don't know about I sometimes still find it comforting to write in long hand. So, I'll be posting again later today

wildland fire crews: fire shelters

From the youtube summary for this video:

Fire shelter deployment from October 22, 2007 by Orange County Fire Authority engine crews. Photos by Karen Tapia Andersen of the Los Angeles Times. A presentation quality video (30 mb) can be downloaded from the Wildland Fire Lessons Learned website at this location (but only if you have quicktime pro).

I’ll tell you how the video ends, all fire firefighters in this fire shelter deployment incident survived. The video may be difficult to watch, but it is important. The fire spotted downslop from the twelve firefighters, and took a run up the hill. The fire fighters could not escape to safety (for example to a “black” or already burned area), so as a last resort, they deployed (crawled under) their shelters.

What are fire shelters? Fire shelters, designed to protect the occupant from being burned by flames, are just large enough for a person to crawl under. The firefighter lies face down on the ground, holding the shelter close to the ground, to protect their lungs from the heat of the flames and the smoke.

fire shelter: An aluminized tent offering protection by means of reflecting radiant heat and providing a volume of breathable air in a fire entrapment situation. Fire shelters should only be used in life threatening situations, as a last resort.

fire shelter deployment: The removing of a fire shelter from its case and using it as protection against fire.

[from National Wildfire Coordinating Group Incident Operations Standards Working Team (PMS 205), 2007. Glossary of Wildland Fire Terminology.

Here are some resources on fire shelters:

History of the Development of the Fire Shelter

US Forest Service Fire and Aviation Management, fire shelter information. This is a brief page with a couple of photos.

National Interagency Fire Center on fire shelters. There is a lot of information on this site, including, but not limited to the two documents below.

National Interagency Fire Center on fire shelters (as of 12/12/12)

The New Generation Fire Shelter. This is the publication that describes the new generation fire shelter. As I understand all wildland fire crews will be using the new generation fire shelter on or before January 1, 2010 and will be familiar with this document.

Tech Tip: What’s New in the New Generation Fire Shelter

I’d like to thank Bill Gabbert of Wildfire Today News for his help in reviewing this article and being a second pair of eyes. Thanks Bill!

wildland fire crews: hotshots

Edited on October 24, 2017

I originally posted a short documentary from the Lone Peak hotshot crew on what it takes to be a member of a hotshot crew. Unfortunately when I was looking at this blog entry on October 24, 2017, I saw that the video that I originally posted is no longer available. Sorry about that, happens sometimes.

I plan to finish up this series on wildland fire crews on Monday with a post on fire shelters. If there are any loose ends to tie up in regards to this series of articles, I will do so after Aug. 10.

Wildland fire crews: on the job

Here is a video showing images of wildland fire crews on the job. Note the air attack (helicopters and air tankers) in support of the wildland fire crews.

wildland fire crews: dozers

From the NWCG Glossary of Wildland Fire Terms:

Fireline: The part of a containment or control line that is scraped or dug to mineral soil.

As you may know by now, wildland firefighting crews digfirelines, also known as hand lines by hand. They use tools such as the pulaski, mcleod and shovels. Dozers (large tractors) also dig fireline, known as dozer lines, with the blade on the front. I understand that the big dozers, such as the one in the video may come equipped with climate control and the operator wears a respirator.

The video shows LA County dozer teams working the Ranch and Santiago Fires during the Oct. 2007 fires. Enjoy!