air tanker Archives - Page 16 of 61

Excellent video of air tankers on Scotts Fire

Bill GabbertSeptember 10, 2012August 25, 2019Uncategorizedair tanker, MAFFS11 Comments

Tim Walton sent us a link to a video that was shot on Sunday at the Scotts Fire east of Ukiah, California (map). The cast of the film includes:

One or more S-2Ts (tanker 96 was one of them)
Tanker 911, the Very Large Air Tanker, a DC-10
Tanker 40, a BAe-146
A MAFFS C-130, (possibly MAFFS #8)

Tim, who has been capturing images of fires for 30 years, shot the video. Thanks Tim!

CAL FIRE says the Scotts Fire has burned about 4,600 acres and is 15% contained. Approximately 300 homes are threatened. In Addition:

The fire continues to burn southeast towards Little Cow Mountain and east towards the Scotts Valley Road area in steep and rugged terrain. Fire crews and equipment have been successful in holding the fire south of Highway 20, west of Scotts Valley Road, and east of Cow Mountain Road. Today, a heavy commitment of aircraft, bulldozers, and fire crews will continue to build and strengthen containment lines. Efforts continue to protect BLM lands, as well as critical communications infrastructure in the Cow Mountain Road area.

Montana is grateful for borrowed Canadian aircraft

Bill GabbertSeptember 6, 2012July 3, 2013Uncategorizedair tanker, CV-580, helicopter, Montana6 Comments

In August retardant dropped by air tankers helped slow the spread of the Highway 87 Fire in Montana. Montana DNRC photo.

Several firefighting aircraft from Canada have been in Montana this summer, on loan thanks to an international agreement. The provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta sent three CV-580 air tankers, two lead planes, and one Bell 212 helicopter under the provisions of an arrangement between five U.S. states and five Canadian provinces titled the “Northwest Wildland Fire Protection Agreement”, which allows ground and air firefighting resources to be exchanged between the two countries. The aircraft have been stationed at Helena and Billings since June.

Here is an excerpt from an article in the Billings Gazette about the agreement and the aircraft:

With the Canadian tankers and helicopter available, fire crews can throw more resources — and do it faster — than usual at new starts in an effort to nip them before they can blow up. For example, the Hibbard fire sparked on Sunday north of Pompeys Pillar and, within hours, three heavy tankers and a helicopter were helping local crews, dousing the fire after it burned 326 acres.

“We want to get in there and dogpile the fires as soon as we hear about them,” [Matt] Wolcott [the Montana DNRC Southern Land Office’s area manager] said.

And its not just the Billings area benefiting from the Northwest Compact. They’ve helped out everywhere from Yellowstone National Park to the Hi-line, from the Crow Indian Reservation to the Missouri Breaks.

Last year, Montana also sent crews to help fight fires in Alaska and an overhead crew, engines and other resources to British Columbia during the 2010 fire season.

While the U.S. has sent ground-based firefighters to Canada on several occasions, I can’t recall any long-term deployment of government-owned air tankers from the U.S. to Canada. Oh, right… that’s because we don’t have have any.

Thanks go out to Dick and Kelly.

Scooper air tanker operations in Europe

Bill GabbertSeptember 5, 2012October 18, 2013Uncategorized43 Grupo, air tanker11 Comments

In January we posted a video of some “43 Grupo” CL-215/415 scooper air tanker operations. Now there is another video available about these folks, who I believe are in Spain.

43 Grupo – Campaña 2012 by Ramos

Music: Gone Away – The Offspring (c)

Thanks go out to Jason

Neptune gains approval to bring on a second jet-powered BAe-146 air tanker

Bill GabbertSeptember 1, 2012August 25, 2019Uncategorizedair tanker16 Comments

File photo of Tanker 41 at Missoula, August 11, 2012. Wildfire Today photo.

Neptune Aviation expected to have its second jet-powered air tanker, another BAe-146, in the air fighting fires by the first part of August, but Coulson Aviation and 10 Tanker Air Carrier protested the next generation air tanker contracts the U.S. Forest Service awarded to Neptune, Minden Air, and two other Western companies. We wrote more about the protest on August 7.

It was generally recognized that the USFS had two choices: say damn the torpedoes and bring on the additional BAe-146s anyway under the new next generation contract, or wait until the contract protest is adjudicated, which would take months. But, they selected a third option, adding the second BAe-146 onto Neptune’s existing P2V air tanker contract as “additional equipment”, which is the method used for bringing on their first BAe-146, Tanker 40, in 2011. Tanker 40 is still working under an additional equipment clause.

Minden has been doing their own conversion of a BAe-146 for a couple of years, but the Missoulian reports that it is still not ready for prime time. Their next-generation contract, under protest as stated before, expected it to be available, like Neptune’s, in August.

Since Minden’s Tanker 55 crash-landed June 3 with landing gear that failed to fully extend, rather than committing resources to repairing the 50+ year old P2V warbird, they have been working on converting the BAe-146.

Neptune’s Tanker 41 will be on contract as additional equipment from September 1 until November 9, 2012, and perhaps longer if needed.

The company is leasing Tanker 40, and possibly Tanker 41 also, from Tronos Aviation, a company that did the conversion, based on Prince Edward Island in Canada.

Thanks go out to Al, Dick, and Kelly

DC-10 air tankers have dropped more retardant than the MAFFS C-130s

Bill GabbertAugust 30, 2012January 25, 2013Uncategorizedair tanker, DC-10, MAFFS14 Comments

The two DC-10 air tankers operated by 10 Tanker Air Carrier have dropped more retardant this year than the seven to eight Modular Airborne FireFighting System (MAFFS) C-130 aircraft flown by the military. The DC-10s have dropped, according to 10 Tanker, 2.408 million gallons through August 27 during 215 flights for an average of 11,200 gallons per flight.The MAFFS, according to the August 29 Government Security News, have dropped 2.153 million gallons through August 24, employing 899 flights to do so. This indicates an average of 2,394 gallons per flight for the MAFFS aircraft.

The DC-10s have a Call When Needed contract with the U.S. Forest Service and are only activated when the USFS decides to use them. This year one of them, Tanker 911, was called up (these dates are approximate) June 11 and released on June 16. It was reactivated around August 3 and the second DC-10, Tanker 910, was put on active duty on approximately August 7.

One of the eight MAFFS C-130s crashed July 1, 2012 while dropping on the White Draw fire west of Hot Springs, South Dakota, killing four crewpersons and injuring two. While the military has many C-130s, there were only eight of the second generation MAFFS2 units which can be loaded into the cargo hold of the aircraft making it possible for it to hold up to 3,000 gallons of fire retardant. And of course the crew can’t be replaced, only substituted.

Forest Service conducts another study on air tankers

Bill GabbertAugust 26, 2012March 23, 2019Uncategorizedair tanker, Photo by Bill G9 Comments

Air tankers Rapid City — Air tankers at Rapid City, July 21, 2012. Photo by Bill Gabbert

The U.S. Forest Service has commissioned and paid for another study on the use of air tankers. This now becomes the eighth one conducted since 1996 that is either completed or in progress. You can see the entire list on our Documents page.

This one was completed by USFS employees assigned to the Rocky Mountain Research Station (RMRS). Their goal appeared to be to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of air tankers, although their exact objective could not be found in the document. It is titled Airtankers and wildfire management in the US Forest Service: examining data availability and exploring usage and cost trends, written by Matthew P. Thompson, David E. Calkin, Jason Herynk, Charles W. McHugh, and Karen C. Short.

The researchers found that the data collected as air tankers are being used is very limited, in spite of the fact that the U.S. General Accounting Office in 2007 recommended the Forest Service develop improved systems for ‘recording and analysing data about the cost and use of these assets at the time of the fire’.

It is generally accepted that the most logical use of air tankers is in initial attack. If aerial resources can arrive at the fire while it is only 5, 10 or 20 acres and slow it down, frequently firefighters on the ground can put it out, sometimes preventing it from becoming a megafire that can tie up resources for weeks costing the taxpayers tens of millions of dollars. CAL FIRE understands this. We documented one example in which three of their air tankers dropped on a fire within 30 minutes of the first smoke report. Air tankers don’t put out fires, but with only 9 on federal exclusive use contracts like we have today, initial attack with aerial and ground resources is usually impossible.

The RMRS researchers, with the limited amount of data available, concluded that air tankers were used on initial attack for somewhere between 7 and 48 percent of all of their flights. The broad range is an indication of the quality of data being collected as these very expensive resources are being used. Averaged across the years 2007–2010, in cases where the use of air tankers could be linked to the fire size, initial attack fires (less than 300 acres according to the researchers) comprise only 10.8% of total flights (see the chart below, from their report).

Thanks go out to Matt

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