NTSB: Sikorsky S-61 hit water tank

The National Transportation Safety Board said Friday the Sikoirsky S-61 that crashed on the Backbone fire on the Klamath National Forest in northern California on July 17 hit a dip tank, or Heliwell, while it was refilling. The NTSB report said witnesses saw the helicopter hit the tank.

From the Redding Searchlight:

During liftoff, the helicopter experienced a “droop condition,” the NTSB report says, and witnesses saw the copter hit the tank.

The Sikorsky banked until its main rotor blades struck the ground, the report says.

The left, main landing gear was sheared off and the helicopter rolled over onto its side. The hard landing damaged the main rotor blades, the fuselage and tail rotor, the report says. A small amount of fuel spilled, but there was no fire.

Both pilots were able to walk away from the accident, but one suffered serious injuries.

The final NTSB report on the accident is still pending.

Another helicopter-related accident occurred on the same fire on July 21 when Thomas Marovich, 20, of Hayward California incurred fatal injuries when falling 200 feet while performing routine rappel proficiency skill training at the Backbone Helibase.

Custer, SD helitack, 50 year open house

On Saturday we attended the open house commemorating 50 years of service by the Custer, South Dakota helitack crew.

The hangar at Custer

There were quite a few people there. More than they expected.

Cooking brats and hot dogs

They had to make an emergency run to pick up an additional two dozen brats and buns.

Boeing Vertol 107

The Type 1 helicopter got a lot of attention.

Boeing Vertol 107


Boeing Vertol 107

The local Custer helicopter arrived late to the party after being assigned to a local fire.

Custer helicopter

There were people at the open house that worked on the helitack crew decades ago. For example, Dave Sisk was on the crew around 1972 and drove over from Cody, Wyoming.

Beginning in approximately 2000 the helitack crew became interagency, supported not only by the U. S. Forest Service, but also by the National Park Service and possibly other agencies as well.

Air tanker crashes in lake in B.C.

CBC news in Canada is reporting that an air tanker crashed in Okanagan Lake in British Columbia while working on the Terrace Mountain fire.

From CBC news:

Canwest News Service

Transportation Safety Board spokesman Bill Yearwood said the pilot is expected to survive. The cause of the crash hasn’t been determined, Yearwood said.

Bruce Freeborn, who lives along the lake in Fintry Delta, said he was working in his yard Saturday when he heard a loud bang and saw the plane in the water.

“Its nose was under [the water] and its tail section was still up and the tip of one wing was still up,” Freeborn said, adding it was upsetting to see the plane go down when fire crews are struggling to save his home from the blaze.

CTV.ca has more information:

Conair photo

An airtanker plane engaged in fighting forest fires in West Kelowna, B.C., crashed into Okanagan Lake on Saturday, CTV News has confirmed. The pilot was able to escape unhurt.

Rick Pedersen, a spokesman for Conair, said the plane flipped over at around noon while attempting to scoop up water from the lake. But Pedersen said he doesn’t know what caused this to happen.

The AT802 Fire Boss plunged into about 110 metres of water, prompting officials from the Canadian Aviation Safety Board to launch an investigation.

Train causes five fires in South Dakota

A train is being blamed for starting five wildfires in southwest South Dakota on Friday. One of the fires near Ardmore burned an estimated 20 to 25 acres.

We have reported on numerous railroad-caused fires previously and have said that most of the time the railroad company receives a free pass. They start the fire (usually preventable by proper maintenance of their equipment), fire departments respond, put out the fire, and that’s the end of it.

Most railroad-caused fires are preventable.They are not inevitable.

Railroads need to be held accountable. They need to be billed for the suppression costs and any damage caused by the fire. They should also be charged with the crime of starting a fire. Only then will they have an incentive to properly maintain their equipment. Last year the U. S. Department of Justice settled a record $102 million civil lawsuit with the Union Pacific railroad for starting the 52,000 acre Storrie fire in the Plumas and Lassen National Forests in California in 2000.

File photo  of a railroad-caused fire in Indiana. Photo: Bill Gabbert

Fire departments, while suppressing a fire near railroad tracks, should also shut down the tracks to any further train traffic. This will provide a safer working environment for the firefighters, and also tends to get the attention of the managers of the railroad, especially on a busy section of track. Fire dispatchers should have the phone numbers available for the railroad dispatch office so they can make the call to shut down the tracks if requested by the on-scene firefighters.

Trains are supposed to stop if an emergency vehicle is parked near the tracks with the red lights flashing, but they don’t always adhere to this rule. I did this once on a fire and the train made what the engineer called an “emergency stop”. He was pissed, because when this is done, they have to walk the entire length of the train to check for any problems that may have been caused by the quick stop. Coal-hauling trains can be very long… I’m just saying.

Aircrane to be at Oshkosh air show

Erickson Aircrane has a license from Sikorsky to build new S-64F Aircrane helicopters from scratch. They also have acquired some from military surplus, adding a tank that can hold 2,650 gallons of water or retardant.

HERE is a link to an interesting article written by the Oshkosh air show that provides more details about this ugly (some say) but beautifully effective  firefighting machine.

Update on fires in Catalonia, Spain

The following is information from Chuck Bushey, President of the International Association of Wildland Fire (IAWF). It is published here with his permission.

—–

Marc Castellnou is one of the Incident Commanders involved in the Horta de Sant Joan Fire in Catalonia, Spain that experienced the burnover resulting in four fatalities and two severely injured firefighters. He is also a former member of the IAWF Board of Directors. Marc has assigned one of his firefighters, Daniel Krauss, to periodically update us on their most current fire situation and the status of the injured firefighters. Following are Daniel’s reports. This first report arrived 10:13 MDT, the other just this morning and I have just added it to this email. Daniel reports that one of their injured firefighters has died. The Team is understandably asking for some time before providing more information on the fire.

Reportedly there are about 25 fires burning in Spain with “hundreds” of firefighters involved and about 8,000 hectares burned (nearly 20,000 acres) involving numerous communities. Additional fires are burning in the Mediterranean areas of France where one firefighter has been injured, two civilians have reportedly been killed in a wildland fire on the island of Sardinia while authorities were implementing evacuations, fires in Corsica has caused the evacuation of two villages, and wildland fires are also burning in Greece in the southern Peloponnese and the island of Evia.

Chuck Bushey, IAWF President and FireNet Moderator

———————-

(Received 10:13 PM MDT)

The fire in Horta Sant Joan remains active but the fire crews reached to prevent it from further spreading and growing although the gusty winds and low humidity’s complicate suppression efforts. The fire is reported almost contained by control lines where the terrain allows access and the perimeter is stabilized by continuous drops from the aircraft involved. The fire has consumed 1.140 hectares so far.

The firefighter who suffered burns on 75% of his body remains unchanged in serious condition. The state of the second injured firefighter who suffered 50% burns has deteriorated during the last hours and is critical.

(Received 7:56 AM MDT)

Things have gone worse in Catalonia and one of the injured firefighters, Pau Costa, has died today in the hospital.

We will provide you more information on the firefighter fatalities later on.

The GRAF team now needs some time among themselves and they asked me to shield them from contact mails and visits from outside until Tuesday or Wednesday next week as far as I can. Certainly everybody will understand and respect that.

 

Black Hills helitack crew open house–50 years of service

From the Rapid City Journal:

The golden anniversary of deploying helicopters to Black Hills forest fires will be observed Saturday, July 25.

The public open house will be at the U.S. Forest Service hangar at the Custer Airport, 3 miles south of Custer on Highway 385. Signs will be posted on the route, including Aviation Way to the airport.

Events will be from 4:30 p.m. to 8 p.m., including a 6 p.m. barbecue, photo slide show and stories, possibly from members of the original crew and the days of “heli-jumping” without parachutes.

Order forms for 50th anniversary T-shirts and historic photographs also will be available. Copies of the “50 Years of Service” helitack photo book can be bought at http://bit.ly/17UvKv.

The Black Hills Interagency Helitack Program was established in 1959. The program has operated continuously since, stationed in either Hill City or Custer.

The current eight-man crew serves a seasonal contract from mid-June to mid-September throughout the Black Hills National Forest, as well as regional property managed by National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Indian Affairs and Crook County, Wyo.

Another firefighter dies in Spain

Another firefighter has died on a wildland fire in Spain when the fire truck he was driving crashed into a ravine while he was responding to a fire in Teruel province.

This is the fifth fatality in Spain in the last few days. Four firefighters died on July 21 while working on a fire in the eastern Catalonia region.

TypicallySpanish has two videos of the fires in Spain. The second one has more images of the fires.

Firefighters take cover as an air tanker makes a drop on a fire near Collado Mediano, Spain, on Tuesday. (Pedro Armestre)

Anniversary of three infamous fires

Three infamous fires occurred on July 22:

1977: Bass River fire in the Bass River State Forest in New Jersey. A 2,300 acre fire killed four firefighters from Eagleswood Volunteer fire Department.

1998: The Kareas fire near Athens, Greece. The fire was fanned by a strong “meltemi” wind (north direction) along the west to southwest facing slopes of Ymettus mountain. The fuel in the area was Aleppo pine (Pinus halepensis) forest.

Firefighters in a number of fire trucks that were on a road that ran parallel to the main fire about 200 m higher saw a new branch and drove back (northwards) trying to escape. The three firefighters in the last truck, probably due to the smoke or due to inexperience in forest firefighting, stopped their truck exactly at the turn of the road in the narrowest point of the canyon. They abandoned it, although they had plenty of water and some safety distance and fled uphill, towards another road that ran parallel to the one they were on until then about 100 m higher.

They were caught by the heat and the smoke in the canyon and perished. One young volunteer firefighter who was with them also died. Their bodies were found at a short distance (about 120 m) from the fire truck, which they had abandoned. The truck received little damage. It is quite probable that if they had stayed in the truck they would have survived. The results of the Fire Service investigation on the incident were never publicly announced.

2003, Cramer Fire, Salmon-Challis National Forest in central Idaho. Two helitack crewmembers from the Indianola helitack crew rappelled into an area in order to build a helispot (H-2) above the fire so that a crew could be flown in to secure the west flank of the fire. The rappell spotter estimated it would take one hour to clear the helispot.

About 5 hours later the two helitack personnel requested to be picked up by helicopter and said “Send them in a hurry.” At that time, however, two helicopters were down, one for 30-hour maintenance and the other for refueling. Fifteen minutes later a helicopter attempted to pick up the crewmen but could not land because of the smoke. The fire burned over the area and the bodies of Jeff Allen and Shane Heath were found 75-100 yards from the helispot. Their fire shelters had not been deployed.

This was the first known wildland fire where a firefighter was under threat of criminal liability for his actions.

More infamous fires can be found in the Infamous World Fires document on our Documents page.

Four firefighters killed in Spain

news.sky.com

From news.sky.com:

Four firefighters have died and two others rushed to hospital with life-threatening burns on July 21 after tackling a blaze in the north of Spain. The firefighters were caught off-guard by a sudden change in wind direction.

The men were involved in efforts to extinguish a huge wildfire which has so far burned over 800 hectares of forest in a national park near Tarragona, in Catalonia. Local officials say the firefighters appear to have been caught off-guard by a sudden change in wind direction, which stoked the blaze.

“They were prepared, capable, qualified firefighters,” head of the Catalan regional government Jose Montilla said. “A change in meteorological conditions caused them to lose their lives.”

One of the two men who survived suffered burns to 75% of his body, while the other suffered burns to 50% of his body, a local government official told news radio Cadena Ser.

A water-dropping aircraft was called in to help fight the blaze as the municipality of Horta de Sant Joan came under threat.

But Spanish fire crews were stretched across the country battling a number of blazes. A fire burning near the town of Collado Mediano, northeast of Madrid, forced the evacuation of some 2,000 people before it was brought under control.

Wildfires in the regions of Cuenca and Ciudad Real also prompted local authorities to close stretches of roads. Forecasters said the strong winds which have fanned flames were expected to ease, but scorching temperatures – as high as 41 degrees Celsius in some parts of the country – would remain for several days.

Euronews has a good 51-second video report about the incident.

Our sincere condolences go out to the families and co-workers of the firefighters.