P-3 at Monument Fire in AZ

A friend of mine told me about this video this morning, and I thought that you might enjoy it as well. The video was shot from the cockpit of a P-3 Orion at the Monument Fire in Arizona on Tuesday, June 14. The video was posted by towpilot2003 to youtube recently. I was especially interested that towpilot2003 reported that

We stopped this portion of the fire using only aircraft as the ground troops couldn't keep up with it's incredible pace ( see http://youtu.be/lQT21UBGsVk ).

Wow. For me this speaks to the important role that aircraft (tankers and helos) play in wildland firefighting - being able to fly to have a shot at keeping up with the fast pace at which the fire was moving. There is nothing more that I can add to what towpilot2003 shared.

Some of you may have seen this video already, as Bill Gabbert of wildfire today wrote about it here.

Keep up the good work everyone and stay safe out there.