A look at Air Attack Operations from the National Interagency Fire Center

On a nice early spring day here in New Jersey after some rain over the weekend and more showers on the way tomorrow into the rest of the week, we are still in the middle of our spring fire season. I am reminded that even with the rain, the sandy soils of the NJ Pine Barrens (aka Pinelands) can dry out quickly. And while the soils in northern and central New Jersey may dry out slowly, we should never let our guard down. Aircraft continue on contract in central and southern New Jersey with a NJ Forest Fire Service based in northern New Jersey.

I am a little bit superstitious, so let's just say I am taking advantage of this fine day to share a video from the National Interagency Fire Center (produced in 2012 and revised in 2013) on Air Attack. I shared this video about six years ago on this blog, and I think it bears repeating, so here it is again. You will learn about Air Attack Operations and the difference between air attack, lead planes, and aerial supervision modules (ASM) along with radio communications between aircraft and between aircraft and ground crew supervisors. Some of the dangers facing low level air operations are discussed such as power lines, meteorological towers, and wind turbines. Most but not all of the operations that you will learn about in this video occur in the western part of the United States. While some states have their own or contract aircraft that fly fires without air attack, some of what you learn here applies to these operations (communications with ground crews and dangers to low level aircraft.

The video is about 11 minutes long.


Direct link to video from the National Interagency Fire Center