Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Air Attack on Local Wildfire (pics/vid)

This is the Matt Staff Rd fire. It was started on 4 August . Hot dry and windy day. The fire started near Spokane Creek Road and the wind quickly pushed it eastward into the Spokane Hills just west of Canyon Ferry Reservoir.

https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/8309/

Here are some pics and vid I captured over the last couple days.

Fixed-wing Air attack on 4 august,


Rotary-wing and fixed-wing (VLAT) attack on 5 Aug.



Rotary-wing, AH-64 I believe, with water bag,


Scoopers taking on water,






Scooper making run on perimeter,

Evening of 4 Aug,



VLAT (Very Large Air Tanker) orbiting before making run into the perimeter,



VLAT making his run,







Red retardant from the VLAT runs visible on the perimeter,

Currently ground crews are mopping up, and cutting a perimeter to contain and fully suppress this fire.

Very good.

They've had 6 of these bad boys on the Elmo 2 fire by Flathead Lake.
It's been quite the show, and they appear to be winning.

Great pics. Those scoopers work out really nice when there is a lake nearby.

There was another team of four small scoopers here that I didn't get pics of. They were small single engine planes with what looked like pontoons, but they were actually water tanks. They were working in quite close formation making scooping runs and attacking the fire. Very cool stuff to see.

Most of the time when there is a fire around here, it seems we are in the downwind smoke pattern, and cannot really see much of what is going on. This time it is a front-row seat to the action.

On the Elmo 2 fire, once it burned it's way closer to Lake Mary Ronan and 150 homes there, they were able to make faster repetitions, turn around time was short. They flew one behind the other all day and dumped 600,000 gallons of water on the Fire.
At 1400 gallons at time, that was a lot of trips.

There was planes dropping chemical suppressant and a few helicopters with water buckets as well.
Last I read they had passed $7M $10.4M in air support and had 575 616 men working this fire.

Great stuff... Thanks for posting.

I've been lucky to ride water patrol to keep pick up points clear of boaters on a couple of occasions. The one fire was only 5 air miles away so the repetitions were very quick. It is not only pretty neat watching them come in but also heartstopping as it seems ripe for problems.

It is dangerous work and those who do this have my gratitude and appreciation. During various command classes I've had the opportunity to work in the management areas of these incidents, from that I'm glad I wasn't trained for such work, even when I was young enough. I do regret not going to the Yellowstone fires way back when. I would have missed a promotional exam which it turns out I may have been better off not taking. So goes the paths we take.

The Sky Crane and Chinook are pretty impressive, the Bambi buckets and smaller copter work great for close in work. Those scoopers on the lake in formation is awesome.
This video is from Santa Fe Dam in Irwindale, CA. This is the closest water source for the central Angelus NF. It is like a frikin' puddle. It can't be more than 75' across and they were still putting them in there. Pretty ballsy flying.
[video:yahoo][/video]

The "Super Scoopers" in the pictures are actually 2 different types of planes. The Red and White are Aero-flites CL-415's and the Red and Yellow ones are Bridger's CL-215T's. The 215's were originally owned by the State of MN and sold to Bridger. Bridger had them converted from recip engines to turbines and just got them back last Spring. Great aircraft in the right spot!

I like round motors but turbines mo bettah fo go.

Great pics and video

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the first jet tanker pic a Lockheed tri-star?
British military used the same basic plane as a bus to various parts of the planet.

The 415s use the Attitude Heading Reference System I am responsible for. Quite a few of them have been through my shop.

Impressive. I hate the place is on fire though.

Cool videos! Thanks for sharing.


Jerry

Some really cool shots.

I'm no fire strategist but I know several career guys who are...the one thing they all agree on...none of these wars were ever won in the air, more so as the forest canopy gets thicker and steeper. They do admit that aerial attack can buy precious time for the "infantry'' to build dozer and handline. And they are at their most effective when the smaller rotary aircraft is used out where spotfires are erupting outside the line. GSA did a study a few years back on cost/benefit ratio of air resources, conclusion, least bang for the buck. It was buried, air resource contractors lobby like any other multi million dollar government vendors. Not sayin' I wasn't happy to see air attack around here the last few years, I didn't seem to mind the cost when I could see flames from my shack, grin. CalFire strategy is direct attack whenever possible, and they need air for that strategy to work safely. The Forest Service uses the "big box" strategy, back off a ridge or two and plan for a dirt line days out, and let everything burn inside the big box. Water drops dry out within an hour or so, retardant stays gooey for a few hours but eventually dries also, so it's very wasteful to dump water inside the big box. Bare mineral earth fireline is what contains forest fires in the end.

I would tend to agree, especially this part...

"they are at their most effective when the smaller rotary aircraft is used out where spotfires are erupting outside the line"

Montanas do as they see fit at the time, they don't wait around to be catered to by government entities.

The following story tells the tale.
Those planes were awesome at knocking down the spot fires started by airborne debris beyond the miles of fire line these private citizens cut with their own equipment.



NOTE:
Clicking on the video interview below is going to launch you to the NBC News page where this video is posted. I was unable to embed it due to limitations on this site.



KALISPELL, MONT. — One homeowner's quick thinking likely saved his land from the fast moving flames of the Elmo 2 Fire near Dayton.

The wildfire began last Friday and has grown to over 16,000 acres burned.

One resident in Dayton described the scene as a war zone, as planes, helicopters and ground personnel battled the fire continuously.

As the fire made its way through high-density timber and brush, one local resident’s quick thinking made a huge difference.

Rick Dreo and his cousin saw the winds shift, forcing the flames onto his property. In a matter of minutes, his 125-acre property was caught in the fire’s path.

“You don’t have time to think, it’s just instinct, your gut, and you go with it, you know, and first thing you want to do is save your property and everything around it. I couldn’t handle the heat, it was so intense, it felt like a blowtorch on your face, it was that intense of a heat,” said Dreo.

Dreo and his cousin’s efforts worked, cutting fire lines with his skid loader and bulldozer, stopping the fire and saving over 100 acres on his property, but he wasn’t done there.

Seeing what he was able to accomplish, Dreo began cutting fire lines for his neighbors’ property. After he was finished, he said they had done miles of fire lines and couldn’t keep track.

“You just want to stop the dang thing as quick as you can, as fast as you can, that’s just what you do,” said Dreo.

His actions were able to save not only his home and land but some of his surrounding neighbors’ property as well, leaving them in disbelief.

“Disbelief and incredible gratitude, I mean that’s everything I own right there, and the fact that somebody I don’t even know, I’ve never met, yet was willing to put his life on the line to salvage that is absolutely incredible,” said neighbor Cheryl Hunt.

Although Dreo’s actions saved his property and a number of others, firefighters still want to remind everyone to be careful in dangerous conditions, as human life is still top priority.

Full containment of the Elmo 2 Fire could take about a month. 

Great pictures. It’s almost a yearly occurrence watching those guys work up close and personal when you live out west. We’ve been under evacuation orders before and I’ve extricated family during a couple wildfires. It’s an extremely weird experience being on a dark country road with no moon while the sagebrush burns on both sides of you, no one else on the road except for an occasional brush truck. I have the utmost respect for wildlifes and the destructive force with which they indiscriminately devour everything in their path. I’ve fought on a couple of wildfires and served on a statewide task force for others. I had zero interest in fighting wildfires. I don’t agree with the terrible policies that have caused the mismanagement of our western forests and the overgrown and over-fueled fuel load densities those policies caused. I wasn’t going to bust my ass and risk my life for something that was better off burning, structures and people SURE but not liberal protected overgrown forests.

My team on the “task force” provided in town fire/EMS coverage for the town or city so that the local teams could focus on their primary fire. Leavenworth, Chelan, Wenatchee, etc we’d cover or augment their crews.

Fighting wildfires is brutally hot, extremely physical work. I have the deepest respect for those that choose to do that work but it ain’t for me.