WW II aircraft: P38 and Coursair

A friend brought a nice video of the Red Bull P38 and a Coursair showing their stuff at last year's Paris airshow. I thought that you might enjoy this 12 minute video so I'm sharing it here.

Before watching the video, be sure to read the description of the video on youtube, you will need to go to the "about tab" and click on more to read a description of both of these wonderful WW II aircraft.

January wildfires in Oregon

Southern California is not the only west coast State that has seen wildfires in January. Oregon saw some wildfires last week, I'm not sure about Washington. The Oregon Dept. of Forestry (ODF) has a Facebook Page, and I am 99 percent certain that you do not need a Facebook account to see the page, but you will need a Facebook account to access other features. Anyway, I went to the ODF Facebook page to check up on the status of the wildfires that I had heard about last week, and I saw in post that they made on Jan. 28th that the wildfires that were

reported at the end of last week are under control, in mop-up, and final reports are being issued --all fires will continue to be monitored in the upcoming months (ODF, Facebook post on 28 January, 2014)

I am sharing a video report (posted on Jan. 24, 2014) from Fox 12 Oregon on the wildfires that were burning last week in coastal Oregon. 

KPTV - FOX 12

direct link to video

As always, I'm never certain how long this embed will work, so if you are arriving at this page sometime after I posted this and the embed code doesn't work, you'll know why.

Drought emergency and enhanced fire wildfire danger in California

While we in the eastern and midwestern regions of the United States have been in and out of some pretty frigid weather and at least in NJ and environs have had our share of snow and rain this winter, California is in the midst of a very severe drought. Drought often equates to higher wildfire danger, and California has seen an increase in the number of wildfires in January.

Stay safe everyone!


direct link to video


direct link to video

In honor of a special lady -- Martin Mars

I just got back from an eye check-up which means that my pupils are dilated and I am having hard time doing computer work, so I'm taking a few hours off from work. I came across a nice 8+ minute video the other day of the engine start up of the Martin Mars known as the Hawaii Mars. She is one special lady and did a lot of good work for many, many years fighting wildfires in support of firefighters on the ground. I love watching her, and I thought that you might enjoy watching her as well.



direct link to video

Blackhawk working a Colorado Fire - onboard camera

I am dug out from yesterdays snowstorm, got eight inches at my house. A long day, and I'm a little tired. Time for a video! It is possible that I have shared this really cool video of a Blackhawk Helo and bucket working a wildfire in Colorado -- taken from an onboard camera. If this is the case, it is worth seeing again.


direct link to video on youtube

Colby Fire - So. CA #2

Last Friday, I wrote here about the Colby Fire. I want to provide an update. As I write this, the inciweb page on the Colby Fire is reporting that the fire has burned 1,952 acres and is at 84 percent containment. No evacuations are currently in place.

If you are following Bill Gabbert's Wildfire Today or Fire Aviation then you have probably seen the photos that of the CL-415 that he posted yesterday and the videos of the CL-415 that he posted on Fire Aviation last Friday. If you haven't already done so, I hope that you go and look at these photos and videos of the CL-415.

I came across a nice video of about 7.5 minutes posted on youtube by Bruce Woodall of a couple of helos working the Colby Fire. The focus of the video is on the helos dipping. I don't know about you, but I like watching helos dipping.



direct link to video

Colby Fire - Southern California

When I got up this morning I saw a short clip on one of national news about the Colby Fire that is still burning in the foothills of the Angeles National Forest in Southern California. The fire started early Thursday morning, has burned over 1,700 acres and is at 30 percent containment. Evacuations are still in place, but some residents have been allowed to return to their homes. I understand that tankers and helos are working the fire including CAL Fire S-2T's, Minden's T-48, and some CL-415 tankers from Quebec (thanks Canada!) on extended contract. Five homes have been destroyed and other structures, including some residences have been damaged. Three injuries have been reported.

CBS in LA has been covering this fire, and here is a link to one of their video reports, and for a written story (including the same video), links to a radio report and a photo gallery, go here. The LA Times has a story here about three men being held in connection with the fire. Bill Gabbert of Wildfire Today has done is usual excellent job covering the Colby fire here, and he just posted a photo gallery earlier today.

And I don't want to forget the wildland fire hotlist thread dedicated to the Colby Fire.

For more coverage of the Colby Fire, you may want to check out these articles:

smoke advisories issued
inmate firefighters working the colby fire

Wildfires burning in Chile and Australia

CHILE

I have been hearing about the bad wildfires that have been and continue to burn in Chile. This is a video report from January 6, 2014 showing some fire footage and health alerts in 

Santiago because of the smoke conditions.

direct link to video

And here is another update (dated January 15) talking about the current situation in Chile where more sixteen wildfires continued to burn and eight of fifteen regions in Chile have areas of varying sizes burning. On the 13th, Chilean officials asked for international help including but not limited aircraft, go here to read that story

AUSTRALIA

As I understand it, wildfires continue to burn over many regions in Australia. The BBC News has a short video (with footage of helos working fires) that may be found here. The Telegraph has a nice photo montage of the bush fire season and the accompanying heat wave that may is located on this webpage.

Winter wildfires in Southern California

The other day, I wrote here about Red Flag Warnings in Southern California, and I'd like to provide an update on what's been going on. I am able to provide these updates because of the very fine work that Michael Archer does in his Wildfire News of the Day (WNOTD), which I get by e-mail (info on how to do this on his blog. I am referencing Archer's January 14th and January 15th editions.

• San Diego County had extra engines and airtankers on ready
• Four to six acre fire near Vandenberg Air Force Base
• Helo works one-half acre fire near Prundale
• Photos and report on Pacific Coast Highway Fire
• CL-415 works Pacific Coast Highway Fire
• Wildfire in Carbazon contained, had prompted evactuations
• Soda Fire in Sequoia National Forest

In addition, don't forget about the WildlandFire Hotlist California and Hawaii forums where I am sure you can find information about most of the fires that I wrote about above. Since I'm not sure if I can match each individual wildfire hotlist thread to the articles abov, I'm not even going to try. Hotlist threads:

• Brown Fire
• PCH Fire
• Soda Fire
• Kimball Island
• Mission
• Malki
• Jalama
• Doe

Reading about River Ice Jams

From time to time I am going to take a slight diversion from the normal things that I write about here and tell you what I've been up to, even if it is not related to arial wildlland firefighting. I've been busy the last couple of days on a project that is almost completed, reading up on river ice formation. I got interested in this because of the ice jam on the Delaware in Trenton NJ last week and because I make ice observations for the National Weather Service. While these types of ice jams do not occur all that frequently in New Jersey, I wanted to do a bit of reading so that I can do a better job with my river ice observations the next time we face the risk of ice jam flooding in NJ. If any of you should be so inclined, and want to read a little more about ice jams and ice jam flooding, I'd suggest that you go to the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory Ice Jam page

and take  a look at their technical information, it is a little on the technical side, but I was able to learn something from reading some of these documents. I also came across another nice document, also from CRREL titled Introduction to River Ice Jams and Mitigation during my wonderings on the internet this afternoon.

I'll be back shortly with an update on what's been happening wildfire wise in California.

Fire danger in California and Texas

If you live in Southern California, chances are you know that Red Flag Warnings are up through Wednesday, January 15 for portions of Southern California including (but perhaps not limited to) Los Angeles, Ventura, and Orange and Counties. I'm not sure if San Diego County is under a Red Flag Warning, and if they are not, they are under a high wind advisory. CAL FIRE has an advisory for the current Red Flag Warnings and Fire Watches here as well as a News Release (1/11/2014) about strong winds and high fire danger

Or perhaps you follow Wildfire Today where Bill Gabbert has reported on the red flag warnings in Southern California on January 12 and again today. Some of you may subscribe to Michael Archer's Wildfire News of the Day as I do and I saw that he referenced a few articles in today's WNOTD. If you don't subscribe to WNOTD, I recommend it, just go to his blog (includes an abbreviated edition of WNOTD) and follow the link in the current entry. 

For example in today's edition of WNOTD, Archer referenced these articles on the fire danger in Southern California:

USA Today on Santa Anna winds

Orange County CA on alert

Restrictions in Los Padres National Forest due to elevated fire danger

High wind watch in San Diego County

The Storm Prediction Center of the National Weather Service (NWS) has web page devoted to fire weather outlooks where you can get information, in addition to going to the main page for the NWS, weather dot gov and using the map to navigate to the portion of the country you are interested in.

Back to California where in addition to Red Flag Warnings in the southern portion of the state, there are also Red Flag Warnings in the mountains outside of San Francisco today into early Tuesday (Jan 14). Stay safe everyone! I know that you've already had some wildfire activity, check out CAL FIRE's incident page or the California page on inciweb

Finally, I don't want to leave out areas of Texas that are also under Red Flag Warnings today. And portions of Oklahoma were under Red Flag Warnings yesterday.

Stay safe everyone! Thanks for all you do to keep us safe!

Update on icing in NJ Rivers including Delaware

Last Thursday I wrote here about an ice jam in the Delaware River in Trenton NJ/Morrisville PA. To the best of my knowledge that particular ice jam had weakened by last Friday.

I was busy on Friday and Saturday making river ice observations on a River near my house for the National Weather Service. I had seen some larger ice chunks covering half the channel near a bridge abutment and another smaller area of large ice chunks near a bend in the River. With the anticipation of a warm up with what may have been a heavy rainfall last Saturday I have to admit that I was a little concerned about ice jams. Fortunately, the rainfall was lighter than predicted and when I went out early Sunday morning to look at my river, the large chunks were gone with no apparent flooding.

So if you were wondering what happened to me last Friday and Saturday, now you know. I'll be back later today with another post.

Ice Jam on Delaware River near Trenton NJ/Morrisville PA

direct link to video and report from 6ABC in Philadelphia

We in New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania shared the frigid temps that many in the eastern half of the U.S. experienced earlier this week. And I suspect other areas are sharing in the woes of ice jams on rivers. The Delaware River that forms the border between NJ and Pennsylvania has an ice jam near a bridge in the Trenton NJ/Morrisville PA area of the river. I knew from reading discussions from the National Weather Service (NWS) Office in Mt. Holly NJ that a Coast Guard Vessel was on the Delaware opening up a channel south of the ice jam. I looked around for a video to share with you where you can see the Coast Guard Cutter on the Delaware and found the video from 6ABC in Philadelphia.

More information including video reports and photo galleries may be found at:

NJ dot com (story and photo gallery)
Philly dot com (picture of Cutter)
10NBC in Philadelphia (also links to aerial footage of ice jam - must see)

The NWS at Mt. Holly has raised both flood warning and flash flood warnings for Mercer County NJ and Bucks County PA:

FLOOD STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE MT HOLLY, NEW JERSEY
449 PM EST THU JAN 9 2014

...THE FLOOD WARNING CONTINUES FOR THE FOLLOWING RIVERS IN NEW JERSEY...
PENNSYLVANIA...

  DELAWARE RIVER AT TRENTON AFFECTING MERCER AND BUCKS COUNTIES

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...

SAFETY MESSAGE...DO NOT ATTEMPT TO DRIVE THROUGH FLOODED AREAS. THE WATER MAY BE
DEEPER THAN YOU THINK.

&&

NJC021-PAC017-100749-
/O.CON.KPHI.FL.W.0001.000000T0000Z-140110T0900Z/
/TREN4.1.ER.140108T2251Z.140109T0030Z.140110T0300Z.NO/
449 PM EST THU JAN 9 2014

THE FLOOD WARNING CONTINUES FOR
  THE DELAWARE RIVER AT TRENTON.
* AT 4:15 PM THURSDAY THE STAGE WAS 19.0 FEET.
* FLOOD STAGE IS 20.0 FEET.
* MINOR FLOODING IS ONCE AGAIN POSSIBLE THIS EVENING.
* IMPACT...AT 20.5 FEET...ROUTE 32 SOUTH AT EAST COLLEGE AVENUE IN YARDLEY
  BOROUGH BEGINS TO FLOOD.

$$

                   FLD     OBSERVED           FORECAST
 LOCATION          STG    STG    DAY TIME     CREST

DELAWARE RIVER
  TRENTON          20.0   18.99  THU 4 PM     20.5    THU 7 PM

&&

FLOOD WATCH
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE MOUNT HOLLY NJ
1219 PM EST THU JAN 9 2014

NJZ015-019-PAZ071-106-100130-
/O.EXT.KPHI.FF.A.0001.000000T0000Z-140110T1300Z/
/00000.0.IJ.000000T0000Z.000000T0000Z.000000T0000Z.OO/
MERCER-NORTHWESTERN BURLINGTON-PHILADELPHIA-LOWER BUCKS-
INCLUDING THE CITIES OF...TRENTON...MOORESTOWN...MOUNT HOLLY...
PHILADELPHIA...MORRISVILLE...DOYLESTOWN
1219 PM EST THU JAN 9 2014

...FLASH FLOOD WATCH NOW IN EFFECT THROUGH FRIDAY MORNING...

THE FLASH FLOOD WATCH IS NOW IN EFFECT FOR

* PORTIONS OF NEW JERSEY AND SOUTHEAST PENNSYLVANIA...INCLUDING
  THE FOLLOWING AREAS...IN NEW JERSEY...MERCER AND NORTHWESTERN
  BURLINGTON. IN SOUTHEAST PENNSYLVANIA...LOWER BUCKS AND
  PHILADELPHIA.

* THROUGH FRIDAY MORNING

* AN ICE JAM CONTINUES ON THE DELAWARE RIVER NEAR TRENTON. THIS
  HAS RESULTED IN FLOODING UPSTREAM TO THE NORTH OF THE ICE JAM.
  WHEN THIS ICE JAM BREAKS, THERE MAY BE ENOUGH WATER BEHIND THE
  JAM TO CAUSE FLASH FLOODING DOWNSTREAM.

* ICE JAMS ARE UNPREDICTABLE, BUT AS TEMPERATURES WARM, ARE MORE
  LIKELY TO BREAK UP. HIGH TEMPERATURES THIS AFTERNOON WILL BE
  NEAR FREEZING. HIGH ON FRIDAY WILL BE IN THE LOWER 40S AND HIGHS
  ON SATURDAY WILL BE NEAR 60.

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...

A FLASH FLOOD WATCH MEANS THAT CONDITIONS MAY DEVELOP THAT LEAD
TO FLASH FLOODING. FLASH FLOODING IS A VERY DANGEROUS SITUATION.

YOU SHOULD MONITOR LATER FORECASTS AND BE PREPARED TO TAKE ACTION
SHOULD FLASH FLOOD WARNINGS BE ISSUED. PLEASE EVACUATE IF TOLD TO
DO SO BY EMERGENCY RESPONDERS.

&&

$$

KRUZDLO

Neptune Aviation Sole Source Contract under protest

I wrote about the the sole source contract that was awarded to Neptune Aviation on Dec. 12, 2013, on Monday, January 6. What I did not learn until today is that a four companies have protested this award. On December 23, protests were filed by Coulson Aviation USA, Minden Air, AeroAir, and 10 Tanker Air Carrier with the General Accountability Office. According to Fire Aviation the four companies

are protesting the non-competitive contract that the U.S. Forest Service gave to Neptune Aviation for two BAe-146 air tankers on December 12.

According to an article published about the protest in today's today's Missoulian (written by Ron Chaney) a decision by the GAO is due by March 28, 2014.

Neptune Aviation and Next Gen Contract

I admit that I am rather late in writing that on December 12, 2013 Neptune Aviation was awarded a sole-source to provide two 3,000 gallon BAe-146  jet tankers effective 2014. It is a four year contract with the option for five one-year extensions. My understanding is that the tank systems on the jets under this contract are not the same tank systems used by T-40 and T-41 in 2013. These "new" jets have reconfigured tanks. For more information see a Dec. 13, 2103 article in the Missouian and this Dec. 12. 2103 article on Fire Aviation.

For details and more documentation on the contract go to this page on the General Services Administration website.

Updated on January 8, 2014. I just found out that Neptune Aviation's contract is under protest, I wrote about it here. 

Miracle emergency landing on NYC expressway

A single engine airplane (Piper PA-28) with what may have been engine trouble made an emergency landing on a busy NYC expressway yesterday afternoon. Thanks to an alert DOT crew doing pothole repair who stopped traffic and the skill of the pilot, there were no fatalities. I can't seem to get the embed code from FoxNewsNYC or CBS2NYC to work, but I've provided links to both reports and video here. If you check out the video from FoxNewsNY, you'll see a video clip of the plane being towed off the expressway.

link to report and video on FoxNewsNYC

link to video on CBS2 NYC

link to report with video and radio audio clips on CBS2 NYC

Campbell Fire in Lassan National Forest CA

I heard about the Campbell Fire, currently burning in the Ishi Wilderness in the Lassan National Forest, yesterday. Thanks to a friend who gave me a heads up. There is a page on inciweb devoted to the Campbell Fire. According to the latest report on inciweb available to me, the fire has burned 220 acres in rugged terrain and is currently 35% contained. I understand from reading the Campbell Fire thread on Wildlandfire Hotlist that CAL FIRE tankers 80 and 81 out of Hollister were working the fire yesterday along with some helos and air attack Bravo 55. Structures are not threatened. The hope is that the fire will be contained at about 12:00 AM on Sunday, January 5.

I found a short article from KRCR 7 ABC on the fire

As a friend of mine told me a few years, it is always fire season in California. Stay safe everyone.

Ground crews and helos working wildfires in Australia

Over the almost five years that I have been writing about aerial wildland firefighting on this blog, I have often said that tankers and helos who fly wildfires do so to support the wildland firefighters on the ground. As I write this it is summer down under in Australia and fire season. The two videos that I am embedding here are of wildfire activity in Australia. Both videos, by ApexImagery, show firefighters on the ground and in the air, I'll get to that in a moment. According to the description on the first video (Toolleen Grass Fire), the footage is of a wildfire in Victoria, Australia. I believe but am not certain that the second video (Sedgwick Fire) is of wildfire footage in Victoria, Australia. 

You will see helos working fires in both videos. In the first video (below) you will see footage of a grass fire near Toolleen in Victoria Australia. At about 28 seconds and then again at about 1 minute 47 seconds you will footage of a helo dropping water from their belly tank near were an engine crew is working the grass fire with their hoses. 

direct link to video

In the second video (allow just under six minutes) you will see some footage of the wildland firefighters on the ground including shots of guys talking on radio and another shot of what looks like a hand drawn map of the fire. Point being that I know enough to know that there is a lot of radio communications going on between various wildland firefighters on the ground and also with those crews providing aerial support. So, as you watch these sections on the video, think about the importance of radio communications in all aspects of any kind of firefighting.  

In addition, you will some nice footage of an Erickson Air Crane working the fire, including a couple of shots of what could be the 'Crane filling her belly tank. In these shots (1:55 and 2:49), it looks like the 'Crane is disappearing behind some trees, but I think that she may be filling her belly tank from a water body. At about 4:16 you will the 'Crane dropping on the fire.

direct link to video