News and opinion about wildland fire
On Saturday during the continuing siege of wildfires in Chile the 747 SuperTanker made four sorties, flying over 2,200 miles and dropping 76,800 gallons. Two of the missions were to help protect the city of Concepción. The video (except for the second one) and photos were shot by the crew on the aircraft.
Here is a video shot from the ground by Moises Gueicha:
The four photos below are of the fire near Concepción:
The photo below is another fire the SuperTanker dropped on earlier in the day.
Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories Uncategorized1 Comment on 747 SuperTanker protects a village and 5 firefighters Above: A fire is approaching Llico, a small village near the Pacific Ocean about 130 air miles southwest of Santiago, Chile.
The 747 Supertanker had a productive day Friday in Chile. They completed four missions and were taxiing to take off on another when the lead plane pilot called saying smoke had degraded visibility making another drop impossible.
Elena Carretero, who has been associated with the flight crew, said one of the drops in the morning helped protect the lives of five firefighters who were in imminent threat of being overrun by a fire.
All of these photos were taken from the 747 by the drop system operator, Don Paulsen. The images of the fire were shot just before 6 p.m. local time on Friday near Llico, a small village near the Pacific coast about 130 air miles (209 km) southwest of Santiago, Chile (map). Elena told us the village was in danger, like the five firefighters, of being overrun by the fire until the SuperTanker used all 19,200 gallons of water to make one long drop between the fire and the village, saving it.
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