Fire Aviation

September 20, 2026 / 4 minutes

How drones can better integrate with total incident response

By Usama Mehboob Wildfire drone operations have moved beyond the question of whether an unmanned aircraft can find heat or provide an overhead view. The harder problem is fitting another aircraft and another stream of data into an incident that may already involve helicopters, air tankers, lead planes, ground crews

September 10, 2026 / 2 minutes

Avincis boosts its European fleet with five 214ST helicopters

Europe’s largest aerial firefighting operator Avincis will get five of the newly modified 214ST helicopters from Australia’s McDermott Aviation. At the tail end of a demanding European wildfire season, Avincis has signed a Letter of Intention for five of the McDermott 214ST medium-lift twin-turbine helicopters, scheduled for a 2028 delivery.

August 27, 2026 / 1 minute

Details of fatal firefighter helicopter crash during Colorado’s Gold Mountain Fire revealed

The first investigation report into a helicopter crash that left a pilot dead during Colorado’s Gold Mountain Fire on July 12 was released by the National Transportation Safety Board on Wednesday. The pilot, 56-year-old Nicholas Dale of Sooke, British Columbia, was the only person on board the Kaman K-1200 when

August 8, 2026 / 1 minute

Search for crashed helicopter crew continues as Widemouth 2 Fire crosses 110,000 acres burned

Over 24 hours later, rescue teams are unable to access the site where a firefighting helicopter crashed responding to a wildfire in Utah, according to officials at the Fishlake National Forest. Ground crews attempted to respond to the area near the ongoing Widemouth 2 Fire in central Utah on Friday,