Being Safe While Flying in or Near a Wildfire

The video that I share today on airspace over fires focuses on California. Living in the Mid-Atlantic area of the U.S.A. and having written the blog for over fifteen years,I am aware that wildfires in my area are often quite different than wildfires in CA and other areas of the western U.S.A. However, in my area, aircraft are used to aid the wildland firefighters on the ground fight wildfires. I am aware of the differences  I am sharing this video because as someone who lives in the Mid-Atlantic USA, I learned something about the airspace over wildfires that I think applies to my area. I am not a pilot, but in years past I have been on scenic rides that were near wildfires, so I am writing from the point of view of flying an airplane or helicopter. 

1. If you see smoke, stay several miles away. Wildfire officials are likely to already know about the wildfire, but if you are not sure, a pilot can report the smoke.

2. Not all wildfires will be under a temporary flight restriction (TFRs).  aThe video point out that it may take a few hours to get a TFR over a wildfire and some smaller fires will be contained in under a few hours.

3. If you are flying an aircraft, you probably know about TFRs on your route, including ones that may be there because of a wildfire. Not only should you stay out of the TFR, don’t fly on the edges of the TFR, stay several miles away.

4. Don’t fly drones in or near wildfires. A drone striking an aircraft of any size can cripple or in the worst case bring down an airplane.

The video is about eleven minutes long and is worth watching. This video did pop up as I was looking on YouTube for videos focusing on aerial resources to help wildland firefighters on the ground. But I learned about this video in mid-August of 2025 when the B10 NJ Wildland Fire Page shared the video in their daily videos section of their webpage

Direct link to August 2025 video from Airborne Firefighters on YouTube

2025 Spring Training: Coulson C-130 Stall Training

I know from my reading on aviation and flying that any pilot (or crew) needs to know how their aircraft reacts in a stall and how they can get out of a stall. Simply, a stall happens when the wings lose lift making it difficult for the aircraft to continue to fly. Airflow over the wings is crucial for the wings to maintain lift and continue flying. In a stall, the necessary airflow over the wings to keep the wing flying is no longer there. Each aircraft has different ways to counteract the stall and keep the aircraft in the air so it is good that spring training in the airtanker business includes stall training and recovery from stalls. Go to this report by the Pilot Institute to read more about stalls.

I was not surprised to see this Facebook Post from Coulson Aviation on stall training as a part of their 2025 spring training (direct link to Coulson Aviation's Facebook post on stall training).

Firefighting Helicopter near miss with a drone in Texas

Direct link to video from KBTX News on YouTube

This story from KBTX News illustrates the dangers in flying drones in fire zones. Last Friday a helicopter was flying a small fire in Caldwell County Texas when a drone came within several feet of colliding with the helicopter. The helicopter pilot had no way of knowing that the drone was near by. Please, no drones in fire zones. Thanks to Mike Archer from Wildfire News of the Day for pointing me to this article in his August 23 Wildfire News of the Day e-mail (go here for more information and to subscribe). 

Updated on August 25th: I only just saw a very good article by Kelly Anderson of Fire Aviation written on August 23rd titled 'PLEASE ground your drone, PLEASE'. He writes about the near miss of a drone and helicopter in Caldwell County Texas and about the importance of grounding drones over a wildfire.

Rifle Range Fire (Wharton St. Forest, NJ) - seeing the fire from above

I went on a flying yesterday, another "scenic airplane flight", but more accurately it was a photography flight. My idea for this flight was to go to the NJ Pine Barrens, and see from the air that which until now I had only seen from the ground. I had an idea of a route, staying away from restricted air space where military operations take place in the Pine Barrens,. About an hour before the flight I found out that the Rifle Range Fire (about 100 acres at the time) was burning near Atison in the Wharton State Forest in the NJ Pine Barrens, see a post dated 6/27 in this wildland fire hotlist thread

As you can see from the photos at the end of this article, we flew near the fire. Before I get to writing more about the fire, which I will do tomorrow, I want to talk about what we (the pilot and I did) to stay safe in the air, and not get in the way of the any air operations over the fire.

Fortunately, I had enough information about the location of the fire, that I was able to plot the approximate location on my aviation chart of the area. I located the fire from the nearest navigation aide (14 nm off of the 263 degree radial of the Coyle (CYN) VOR. I had already checked the Notices to Airmen (NOTAM) to see if there were any that would affect our flight (there were not).

So, I  checked (TFRs) at National Interagency Fire Center Temporary Flight Restrictions , there were no fire TFRs listed in New Jersey at the time. In fact there were no other TFRs near our flight path. I knew that the New Jersey Forest Fire Service may have had two helicopters in the air over the fire (one working the fire with a bucket along with a possible second helo for observation. I located water bodies on the aviation chart near the fire where a helo and bucket could dip.

I drove to the airport and did my pre-flight on the plane we would be using. The pilot, Johnny, came and I told him about the fire. Johnny said that he saw smoke from that fire on an earlier flight. We agreed to get flight following from approach control (McGuire Approach/Departure) who controls the air space we would be flying through. Flight following means that we will be getting traffic advisories. We will know about any military aircraft in the area and aircraft doing fire operations.

When we were about 25 nm out of the fire area, we got flight following, Johnny told the controller that we were on a photo flight near the Hammonton Airport (an airport near the fire). Johnny asked about the wildfire, andt he controller did not know about it. However, a few minutes later, the controller told Johnny about the fire, giving us a location, and Johnny told the controller what we were doing, that we were on a flight to take photos of the fire. As soon as I was done, perhaps five minutes, ten minutes at the most, we left the area continuing with flight following.

The traffic advisories came in. I knew that I was in safe hands with Johnny flying the plane. Johnny had suggested early in the flight that I could open the window in the cockpit to take pictures. So, when we got close enough to the fire for good photos, I stuck my camera out the window and took some shots. While I was doing this, I had my head set off, so I did not hear the traffic advisories that Johnny got telling us about the two helos that were over the fire. Johnny told me later that he thought from the colors, that one might be a news helo. Johnny got a couple of other traffic advisories while I was taking photos.

The point that I am trying to make here is that Johnny and I did not just fly towards the fire. To do that would be unwise and possibly unsafe. We checked with the appropriate agencies for flight restrictions over the fire (none that we knew of), got flight following, and were looking out for other traffic being especially mindful of air operations over and near the fire.

Updated 6/28/11 at 10:50 AM EDT. I believe that one of the helos we say may have been a NJFFS helo doing observation work.

Be safe out there everyone.

Edited Aug 20, 8:07 PM

Aircraft maintenance and inspections are important!

In going to ground school last year and studying for the FAA private pilot exam, learning FAA regulations took a fair amount of time. The FAA regs are fairly comprehensive. And no, I'm not going to write about FAA regulations.

But it was studying the regulations that speak to aircraft maintenance and inspections that I do want to spend some time with in this blog. It did not take me all that long after I started writing about aerial wildland firefighting to appreciate the importance of aircraft maintenance and inspections. I knew that such maintenance and inspections take place on an ongoing basis, both during and outside of fire season. But I never gave any thought to the specifics aircraft maintenance and inspections.

I learned that there are specific items of preventive maintenance that private pilots can do, such as changing seatbelts; replacing landing gear tires, and replacing batteries, and replacing or cleaning spark plugs.), that these are detailed in CFR 14 FAR part 43, appendix A (c).

I learned about different kinds of aircraft inspections and who can do them, either an airframe and powerplant mechanic or an airframe and powerplant mechanic with inspection authorization, depending on the type of inspection. An inspection is not the same thing as preventive maintenance that can be performed by a private pilot.

For me, the most important thing that I have been learning and doing, is the pre-flight inspection of the Cessna 172 when I take scenic rides. The pilot and I do this together, where he is looking for things that I miss. Like everything else in aviation, this is on a check list that is kept in the aircraft. In this case, the check lists are on laminated cards for ease of use. It covers things like:

• siphoning off a little gas to check for impurities, to
• checking the oil level and the alternator belt, to
• looking at the cables in the ailerons, flaps, elevators and rudders; to
• looking at the rivets (we don't want any popped rivets); to
• checking the propeller to be sure there are no nicks.

This is just a sample of what is on the pre-flight list for the Cessna 172. It is the most important part of the flight. Doesn't matter if she just had an annual inspection the week before, you do a pre-flight anyway. Doesn't matter if you took it up yesterday, you do another pre-flight. The check list will be different perhaps, depending on the aircraft, but a pre-flight is a pre-flight.

I'll be writing more about aircraft (fixed-wing) inspections and maintenance as time goes on. In the next three articles, I will be taking about a certain type of inspection known as a progressive inspection. I had the privilege of seeing an A&P mechanic with inspection authorization perform an annual inspection on a couple of general aviation aircraft, I'll be writing about that in a few weeks. So stay tuned.

near miss: airplane versus terrain

I recently ran across this video on the wildland fire hotlist forums.

Some terminology:

VFR refers to visual flight rules.
IMC: instrument meteorological conditions (i.e. I can not see).
IFR: instrument flight rules, flying with instruments when you can not see.
scud running: flying in VFR conditions or under the clouds to avoid IMC conditions.

Here is a Dept. of Interior "Lessons Learned" Aviation safety advisory on inadvertent flight into instrument meteorological conditions.

Flying Fires -- Fog, Smoke, and VFR or IFR: Fires and IFR

Departures

It is rare these days for a tanker to depart in IFR conditions with a load of retardant. We used to do it all the time and it is quite dangerous. After a few years, I refused to depart IFR with a load. The problem comes with the eventual emergency (engine failure,hydraulic failure, fire on board etc.) You have to pitch the load (or crash) and you can't see what you are dropping on. It could be a highway, a house or kids in a play ground. Then there is the very real problem of not being able to get back into the airport you just took off from because it is fogged in. Now you have to fly to your
alternate, IFR with an emergency on board. It's a terrible combination (G, former air tanker pilot).

So what are the options here? You are called to fly a fire, but your base is fogged in. Yes, you are an IFR rated pilot, as is your tanker. One option is to fly empty, under IFR if necessary, to another base with better weather and VFR conditions to load retardant and then fly to the fire under VFR.

Ok, going back to IFR for a moment, the book calls for what is know as a minimum altitude of 2,000 ft above the terrain. You can get down to 1,000 ft above the terrain and lower during an IFR-ILS approach. Consider the air tanker base in Missoula, Montana. Missoula is surrounded by mountains. One of the departure routes out of Missoula, Konna two departure, requires a 350 ft per nautical mile climb. G, who used to fly a P-2, tells me that translates to 1,050 ft per minute climb rate in a P-2 to meet the departure requirements. He goes on to explain what this means:

That's nothing for a modern jet airliner, but a tired old recip with an engine out would be hard pressed to make that kind of climb rate (1,050 per minute). The Missoula One Departure (another departure route out of Missoula) requires 400 ft per nautical mile or 1,200 ft per minute to safely get out of that valley without running into a mountain. Doing even an empty departure in IFR minimums out of a place like Missoula is asking for a whole heap of trouble if you lose an engine. You may not be able to meet the minimum climb gradient with an engine out. In 2000, flying out of Missoula in less than a mile visibility in smoke forced me to change my personal limits. I did it for a couple of weeks and then I decided this is nuts, so I refused. It's the whole idea of 'is this fire really worth injury or death to a civilian on the ground or losing a flight crew and tanker?'

Lives are not expendable.

IFR at fires?

Flying around the fire in smokey IFR is just a guess. There is no Air Traffic Control (ATC) that will even pretend to talk to you if you are that close to the ground. (G)

Remember the 2,000 foot minimum terrain separation that I was talking about earlier? I've covered retardant drops by tanker in other articles, and the tankers are flying at low altitudes when making the drop. Much lower than 2,000 feet above ground level. An inversion can trap smoke from a wildland fire under its lid. Of course smoke can be a problem over a fire without an inversion. A tanker flying in smokey IFR to drop retardant on a fire? Can you even drop the retardant where it needs to go without injuring someone on the ground? Can you drop the retardant without running yourself into the ground or clipping a tree with your wings? So sometimes smokey conditions at a fire can shut down an airshow.

Lives are not expendable.

Fog, remember fog? Fog over a fire might shut down an airshow but fog over a fire is good news for the firefighter on the ground because the moisture in the air aids in suppression efforts

_____________________________


Note (added July 2012): I'd like to thank a couple of my tanker pilot friends whom I corresponded with as I was preparing the articles in this series for their time and help. Here is a complete list of articles in this series with hyperlinks:

1. Introduction (Jan 4)
2. VFR, I can see (Jan 6)
3. IFR, I can't see but I have instruments (Jan 8)
4. Fog (Jan 11)
5. Inversions (Jan 12)
6. Flying fires: VFR or IFR? (Jan 13)
7. Reflections (Jan 18)

Importance of safe aerial operations

I had hoped to be able to begin writing today about some of the other weather conditions and visibility limitations that can ground fire fighting aircraft. This would be a nice follow-up to my recent posts about winds. My idea was to begin by writing about fog, so I have spent some time over the three days or so reading more about fog and then look at other weather conditions and visibility limitations that can ground air tankers.

As sometimes happens, I found that I need more time before I am ready to write about fog, other visibility limitations that can ground air operations. I have written about winds grounding aerial fire fighting operations, and I suspect that there are other weather related conditions that can ground air operations. Thunderstorms come to mind, and perhaps there are more.

But while I do need more time before I can write about some of these issues in more detail, I do want to emphasize the importance of safety. Tankers and helicopters will not fly when conditions are present -- high winds, turbulence, fog, thunderstorms, other visibility restrictions, etc. -- that will jeopardize safe aerial firefighting operations.

While I am learning more about fog, inversions, thunderstorms and the like, I will continue to write about other topics. For example, I have promised some friends that I will write more about some of the different types of helicopters used in firefighting. I will begin doing so on Monday.

In the meantime, I want to leave you with this thought:

Lives are not replaceable.

Air Operations on Sheep Fire (Oct. 2009)

Aerial firefighting operations can be grounded reasons other than high winds and turbulence. One example is fog. Another example is thunderstorm activity. I had hoped to write something in a little more details about fog today. Unfortunately, that post will have to wait.

In the meantime, enjoy this video. It was shot by Nick Mitchell at the Sheep Fire that burned outside of Los Angeles in early October. According to Nick's blurb on youtube, the video was shot before air operations were grounded due to 50 mph winds on nearby ridges.

Lives are not replaceable

I have been giving considerable thought to one of the last sentences in my post of November 6.. Recall that I ended with:

Strong winds and bad turbulence are dangerous to all aviation interests, include aerial firefighting operations, leading to grounding of aerial fire fighting operations. So, if you are living near a wildfire AND the winds are strong AND you don’t see tankers and helicopters making retardant or water/foam drops on the fire there is a reason. They are not flying because it is not safe to do so.

I gave careful consideration to what I can add given that I am not an aerial firefighter. Nor am I resident of the wildland/urban interface in parts of America that are especially vulnerable to wildland fires such as southern California, the southwest, the northwest, etc. Nor am I a (ground) wildland fire fighter. For that matter, I am not a structure firefighter nor am I a first responder (e.g. EMT).

But I have been writing about aerial wildland firefighting for about ten or eleven months now, and I have learned a lot of things, including (and not limited to) reasons tankers don't fly. That is:

• Lives are not replaceable.
• Pilots and crews care about what they do, and they are good at it. They want to help the wildland firefighters on the ground protect your home, AND they want to do so safely.
• Lives are not replaceable.
• Strong winds, rotors and turbulence WILL overpower an airplane. Flying in strong winds and turbulence including but not limited to downdrafts and rotors puts pilots and crews at great risk for fatal crashes.
• Lives are not replaceable.
• Pilots want to be safe, they don't have a death wish. And they want you to be safe.
• Lives are not replaceable.
• Not only does a tanker crash put the lives of the pilot and crew in jeopardy, it puts the lives of all those on the ground in jeopardy as well. This includes you, your family, and your neighbors.
• Lives are not replaceable.
• Perhaps wildland firefighters on the ground can save your house, but they won't be able to save your house if a tanker crashes into it.
• Lives are not replaceable.
• Post-crash fires might exacerbate an already bad situation, perhaps increasing the size of the wild fire.
• Lives are not replaceable.

In summary, there are certain rules with regard to sustained and gusting winds and turbulence that tanker pilots must deal with.The most important one being, If the winds are blowing strong enough that aircraft are likely to be destroyed, they won't fly. But also, if winds are blowing strong enough that retardant will be blown away before it hits the ground, they don't fly.

Lives are not replaceable.



postscript: I read in one of the Interagency Online Aviation Training Modules that what is good for an airplane is also good for a helicopter. And what is bad for an airplane is bad for a helicopter. So, I assume (for the time being) that what I wrote above applies equally to airplanes and helicopters. I hope to look into how downdrafts, rotors, and turbulence affect helicopters flying fires in the coming weeks and will write about what I find here.

Why tankers don’t fly: safety concerns and high winds

If you have been following recent LA Times articles, see for example this article , or Bill Gabbert’s blog then you know valid concerns have been raised regarding tankers and helicopters not being deployed to the Station Fire in the early morning hours of the second day of the Station Fire. These are legitimate concerns that should be addressed, however I am not addressing them here. Rather, I am concerned with high winds as a reason why tankers and helicopters don’t fly.

Knowing that many fires out west are in or near mountainous terrain, I got interested in learning more about winds and turbulence that occur in mountains and how they affect aviation interests. I went first to one of my general aviation books -- The Complete Pilot by Bob Gardner. Here I read about what is known as mechanical turbulence. If I understand mechanical turbulence correctly, mechanical turbulence occurs when a building or a mountain disturbs that the flow of the wind current, sometimes creating strong downslope winds on the lee side of the building or mountain. These winds are also known as down drafts or bad air. Strong down drafts (see the picture above) can have more down power than airplanes have climb power. A pilot caught in such a down draft may not be able to fly out of the downdraft.

The picture below illustrates something known as rotor winds, a pilot unfortunate enough to tangle with these winds is flying into winds that are likely to overpower an aircraft with often fatal consequences.

There have been fatal tanker crashes while flying fires where down drafts and/or rotor winds may have been a major factor in the crash including a fatal crash out west in the late 1990s and one or two fatal crashes in the 1970s (also out west).

Wind and turbulent conditions can be forecast by meteorologists. Strong winds and bad turbulence including but not limited to rotors and down drafts are dangerous to all aviation interests, including aerial firefighting operations, leading to grounding of aerial fire fighting operations. So, if you are living near a wildfire AND the winds are strong AND you don’t see tankers and helicopters making retardant or water/foam drops on the fire there is a reason. They are not flying because it is not safe to do so.


REFERENCES

For more information about mountain wave turbulence, please go to this web page from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, they are the source of the images that I have included here. I like that document, not only for the wonderful graphics but for a short and succinct explanation of mountain wave turbulence. While written for the Australian audience, I certainly got a lot out of it. Sparky Imeson, who wrote a book about mountain flying writes about mountain waves and rotor winds here. Sadly, Sparky died when his plane crashed earlier this year. His family is keeping up his web page on mountain flying. He has numerous articles on many other subjects related to mountain flying and I highly recommend them.  If I am correct, I believe he gave presentations on mountain flying at training sessions for air tanker pilots. I myself have spent at least a couple of hours on his website, and find myself frequently referring to it.

Good Drop, Effective Drop

When I started working on this article on the factors that make for an effective retardant drop, I was thinking about things like drop height (altitude), drop speed (aircraft speed) and winds. Then as sometimes happens, I set the draft aside for a few days. During this period I took some time to go through some files that I have accumulated over the last several months, along with some correspondence with a couple of my tanker pilot friends. The result, thanks to my reading (listed at the end of this article) and my correspondence with a couple of my tanker pilot friends is what you see here.

As I read through my files and reviewed some of my correspondence, what was driven home to me is that a good drop is when the crew completes the drop in a safe manner and returns home.

What makes for an effective drop then? Well, I have already talked about two factors: the tank system (some examples of tank systems currently in use may be found here, here, and here) and retardants . Other factors include the right altitude (height at which the retardant is dropped), correct airspeed, and calculating the drift of the retardant due to winds.

To set the stage, it is important to say what an ideal drop is, that is what is the tanker pilot aiming to do in making the drop? I understand from my reading as well as e-mails with a couple of tanker pilot friends that the goal in making an ideal drop is that retardant has no forward speed and rains down on the vegetation.

One of my tanker pilot friends tells me that one of the reasons that you want to eliminate forward speed of the retardant  is to (hopefully) eliminate shadowing. As I understand it, shadowing means that all the retardant is plastered against the side of the tree, bush, even grass facing the drop while the backside is left untouched by retardant. Eliminate forward speed of the retardant and shadowing of the retardant is eliminated.

In addition, retardant drops at forward speeds can be very dangerous to ground crews who have not moved away from the drop zone. Fortunately, Incident Command will usually be able to clear ground crews from the drop zone to avoid these situations.

My tanker pilot friend made a couple of more pertinent points on retardant drops. First, he told me that dropping retardant at too high an airspeed (aka drop speed) can shear the retardant load apart so that it disperses too much leaving gaps in the coverage. Two, dropping to high, especially in high winds means that pilots won't be able to predict where the retardant will land.

Finally, he went on to say that if it is safe to do so in these high wind conditions, pilots might be able to make a retardant drop from a lower altitude so that some retardant line can be built. There might be gaps in the line, and the pilots may not be able to predict the coverage level, but at least there will be some retardant line that will slow the fire until the ground crews can get there.

As I was doing my background reading for this article I was impressed by the problems of making retardant drops in high winds. That is, when making drops in high winds, not only does the pilot/crew risk not knowing where the drop will end up, they are flying in very extremely dangerous conditions.

References:

I am including links to some of the USFS documents that I read while doing background research for this article. Before you read the documents below, I should caution you that some of the numbers cited are under ideal conditions in the laboratory, so to speak. Aircraft performance in actual drop conditions on the fire line will be different.

Lavalette, Greg. Safe Drop Height for Fixed-Wing Airtankers. 0057-2317-MTDC. Aviation Tech Tips (March 2000). US Forest Service, Technology and Development Program, Missoula Technology and Development Center, Missoula, MT.

Suter, Ann. Aerial Delivery Systems User Information: Wind Speed and Drop Height. ug-7. Wildland Fire Chemical Systems - MTDC. February 2005. US Forest Service.

Suter, Ann. Aerial Delivery Systems User Information: Drop Speed. ug-13. Wildland Fire Chemical Systems - MTDC. February 2005. US Forest Service

Additional Aerial Delivery Systems User Information documents, Safe Drop Height for Fixed-Wing Airtankers, and other documents relating to testing aerial delivery systems may be found on this USFS webpage.

What's next and review

I am resuming with two articles I have been working on for a couple of weeks: (1) what makes for effective retardant drops and (2) more on how winds affect and interfere with aerial firefighting operations. Look for the first of these articles later in the day on Wednesday with the second article coming sometime on Friday. Recall that I wrote here that I had to take some more time to do some background research. If you want to refresh your memory on what I was writing about you might want to go back and read these posts:

• October 19: Engine failures with happy endings
• October 21: 40-year veteran air-tanker pilot speaks
  

Fly clear of wildfires