Monday, January 30, 2017

Wildfires in Chile - January 30th

I suspect that most of you know about the devastating  wildfires that continue to burn in Chile. I wrote on January 20th about the death of three Chilean wildland firefighters and I understand that a fourth firefighter has died, see this January 25th article by Bill Gabbert of Wildfire Today, and as well as a fifth firefighter (an air tanker pilot). This in addition to deaths of civilians from the wildfires that have burned hundreds of thousands of acres. The 747 tanker was deployed to Chile last week, part of aid to Chile from around the world. The Russians sent an IL-76 tanker which arrived today (see the January 30th article on Fire Aviation) and more airtankers are enroute to Chile (see the January 29th article on Fire Aviation), including perhaps one of Coulson's C-130s.

I am embarrassed to say that I only realized today that Bill Gabbert of Wildlfire Today and Fire Aviation has been embedded with the 747 crew since it was deployed January 24th. Bill writes of the deployment of the 747 tanker and being embedded in this January 24th Fire Aviation article.

Bill has done a fantastic job reporting from Chile! Thanks Bill and stay safe. Anyway, there are way to many articles to refer to here. Rather I refer you to articles with the Chile label from Wildfire Today and articles with the Chile label from Fire Aviation. There are a lot of articles, but if you would like to see some photos and videos, see this January 29th article on Wildfire Today and a video shot from inside the 747 cockpit on Fire Aviation (January 28th). Bill has several posts with other videos and photos that you might want to check out.

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