Forest fire started about 11:30 am about 1.25 miles SE of our property. Our pond was the closest by far, so for the past 4 hours we have had a procession of four helicopters dipping out of our pond. Their turns are less than 4 minutes so about every minute we see the orange bambi bucket drop out of the sky and into the pond. They move away when the air tankers make their drops. There are two multi engine air tankers and two single engine air tankers (SEAT) working the fire and one other helicopter that is taking from a neighbor's pond down the road. So far they have dipped out of our pond more than 100 times. The pond is about 60 yds behind the house so we have a great view. We love the heavy initial attack. We built our pond for just this reason. We have no natural water source, but pipe all of the water from our house and shop roof to the pond.

Pictures later when things settle down. They are making great progress on the fire. It's about 40 acres and temps are in the low 90s with 14% humidity.

Hope they knock it out good!

I've watched them dip from a pond to fight fires. Interesting for sure.

I hope they get it fast, temps are close to 100 here in Grants Pass.

So who is flying? CHI or Evergreen or both or BFS?

Dave, I know it's not Columbia or Evergreen (I think they went bankrupt after Del passed away). I'll find out. I know the Douglas Forest Protection Association contracts for 2 helicopters and another is stationed here by the state. One came from the Coos district to help out

Is that a Huey?

Yup. Lot of them in the Fire Service.

I havent seen a huey in 30 years

Not since dad used to fly them


the neighbors asked me if I could speak to him about mowing the grass in his air cav stetson and boxers. The dude is ‘still out there’

Logger, do they ask permission to dip out of your pond? Just curious

That the fire near Canyonville?

Wow, they may just suck that little puddle dry. I hope they get the fire out quickly.

I watched a few flying boats making water drops a couple years ago. They were impressive. I only wish I could have seen them scooping up a tank of water while semi airborne.

Crittrgittr:

No they do not ask permission, but in our case we have given them blanket permission. The other pond they've used is owned by a tough as nails 70+ woman sheep rancher. She figured that there must be a fire someplace when the second helicopter arrived. She called us (as does every one else since they are all down on the creek and we are up on the hill with good visibility) and we let her know.

Steve:

Yes it is about 14 miles east of Canyonville off of Days Creek. At 8:10 they are still pulling water out.

4 Hueys worked the fire and one C Max.

The 3 main helicopters are owned by Marble Mountain helicopter in Myrtle Creek.

Very cool pics and great public service building and letting them use the pond. Is run off enough to keep it full?

Thanks for the great pics, back when I was on our local volunteer Dept. I was on a couple different fires when the belly dumpers where dropping water, right over the top of us, impressive to say the least

Good on you for providing such a useful service. Also, great pics. Finally, your property and the area around it is absolutely beautiful. Here's hoping they quash that fire ricky-tick.

Nothing like having an airshow nearby. Those helicopter pilots sure work hard. Sure grateful for their efforts.

We had an similar experience with Chinooks and the Erickson Skycrane coming to the athletic field 150 yd from our house. They were fighting the Bighorn fire in the Santa Catalina Mts in Tucson. First day was the big push to put out the fires moving to the SE and going towards Ina and 1st avenue.

The helicopters came in to the bambi buckets every 8-10 minutes non stop for 9 1/2 hrs! They are amazing pilots and can dunk those buckets or pump the tank full efficiently even in 25 mph winds!

The dogs and horses got used to the noise within an hour. Nothing like one of these huge helicopters coming over the house on their approach! I took lots of videos but only a few pics. It went on for four days but slowed down some compared to first day. When it was windy the chop of those blades was quite loud as you can imagine.


Here is the Erickson skycrane about to leave. After filling the tank and closing the valve the extra water falls out of the hose. Second pic to show just how close they were.

That is fantastic. There is no spring for your pond, it is just water runoff from your roof. It must rain quite a bit up there.

Great photos.

Great pics. Unfortunately I've been watching air attack on multiple fires for 2 months, some of which dried up a few swimming pools.

Hope they can get it controlled..

Pugs:

In an average rain year (35-40 in) the pond will fill and start flowing out the overflow pipe. This year our rainfall is about 14 in below normal, so the pond started out about 1 ft below full pool. They took it down about 2'. After fire season is over, I'll find out how much water they took out as they log every run.

Wow. All off roofs, too. Impressive.

I just edited my post to correct our annual rain fall to 35-40 in. Our shop roof is 44 x 64 and the house is about 3000 sq ft. Of course the pond gets direct rainfall and some ground run off.

Don't want to be impounding ground run off. Get sued by the water rights owners.

Pretty nifty set up.

They get the fire under control?

Yes, they kept it to about 40 acres. They will be mopping up for days. They have hose lays completely around the fire and two copters are on stand by if needed. It had the potential to get much larger, and very quickly. In 2016, the Stouts Creek fire about 6 miles south of us burned through 6 miles of rugged timberland in less than 5 hours. Fortunately for us it burned south and not north. That was caused by a guy from Arizona mowing dry grass on a very windy 108 degree day.

Local firefighters have said it would be an expensive fire season as they plan to use lots of air resources to try to minimize hand crews. There is concern that if one person of a 20 person hand crew comes down with Covid 19 that the whole crew would have to be isolated.

I bet. My wife's cousins kid is a summer firefighter. He came down with the 'vid a few weeks ago. Delayed his firefighting.