Here are a couple of photos taken at Missoula, Montana today. Tanker 41 is the second BAe-146 that Neptune Aviation has leased from Tronos, a company based on Prince Edward Island in Canada. The air tanker can’t be put into service for the U.S. Forest Service until the agency resolves a protest about the contracts that were recently awarded for next generation air tankers.
The photo below shows smokejumpers loading onto a Twin Otter aircraft after being dispatched to a fire.
Smokejumpers loading onto an aircraft at Missoula, August 11, 2012. Wildfire Today photo.
And, for a bonus, we have a photo of the TBM air tanker that Missoula’s Museum of Mountain Flying purchased last year. The TBM flew into Missoula on October 10, 2011 and is on display at the museum. TBM’s could carry about 600 gallons of retardant. This compares to the 3,000 the BAe-146 can hold. or the 20,000 gallon capacity of the 747 supertanker.
A TBM air tanker at Missoula’s Museum of Mountain Flying. Wildfire Today photo.
Parker Peak Fire, July 2, 2012. Photo by Bill Gabbert
Update at 10:08 a.m. MT, July 4, 2012:
It is apparent from some comments left on this article that we were misinformed by the Northern Rockies Type 2 Incident Management Team’s press release. While smokejumpers did jump on the Parker Peak fire on Monday, three of our readers said this did NOT make history.
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(Original article, July 3, 2012)
Smokejumpers made history yesterday. For the first time ever, they jumped on a fire in South Dakota. I was taking photos in the general area and saw a jump plane overhead and heard him on the radio saying he was returning to Grand Junction, but I didn’t imagine that it had just kicked out a load of smokejumpers on the Parker Peak fire — a fire that you can easily drive to that already had several engines hard at work. I thought maybe a jump plane was substituting for an Aerial Supervision Module….or something. But, when firefighting resources are stretched thin, all help, even especially smokejumper help, is appreciated. (Just kidding folks!)
The Parker Peak fire is burning just a couple of miles east of the White Draw fire northeast of Edgemont, South Dakota, and south of the Highway 86/18 junction. This morning, Bob Fry’s Northern Rockies Type II IMT assumed command of the fire. It is 10% contained, has burned 800 acres and has 70 personal assigned, in addition to one Type 1 crew, one Type 2 crew, five engines, and one dozer. Five structures and two outbuildings are threatened by the fire.
File photo of Russian smokejumpers. Photo: Mark Thiessen/National Geographic
UPDATE at 11:35 a.m. MT, June 7, 2012: A ninth firefighter has unfortunately died. (Reported by Chuck Bushey of the IAWF and by the Russian media company ITAR-TASS from a Rosleskhoz Federal Forestry Agency source.)
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Russian authorities announced on June 7 that eight smokejumpers were entrapped and killed in a wildfire in southern Siberia. The eight jumpers were part of a team of 14 that parachuted into the fire. The other six managed to escape from unexpected fire behavior thought to be caused by a wind shift. One was admitted to a hospital with serious burn injuries.
The BBC reported that authorities have opened a criminal negligence investigation into the incident.
Last year we told you about an excellent article in National Geographic about the smokejumping program in Russia. The country has 4,000 jumpers working out of 340 bases across the country.
Our condolences go out to the family and coworkers of these firefighters. Thanks go out to Dick
Smokejumpers occasionally get hung up in trees, but they are trained to use the rope they carry to lower themselves to the ground. But two military paratroopers had to be rescued by fire departments after they landed in trees near Rainier, Washington Thursday afternoon. Neither was injured. Here is an excerpt from an article in The News Tribune:
The Joint Base Lewis-McChord fire department used a ground ladder to retrieve a male paratrooper who was stuck more than 30 feet in the air. But they had to wait for the Thurston County Special Operations Rescue Team to rescue the female paratrooper, who was between 70 and 75 feet off the ground, Lacey fire battalion chief Steve Crimmins said. The team includes firefighters from six fire agencies equipped and trained for rescues on steep slopes and in trenches, collapsed buildings and trees.
Firefighters were able to position a ladder truck close enough to get the female paratrooper.
I have never heard of a smokejumper that was rescued by a ladder truck.
And speaking of smokejumpers, the U.S. Forest Service smokejumpers who have always used the traditional round parachute, are transitioning to the square chute like the Bureau of Land Management has been using for a long time. Some jumpers are receiving training now on the “new” chute in preparation for the upcoming fire season.
Hastings fire in Alaska, May 31, 2011. Two smokejumpers approach landing zone. Photo: Mike McMillan
A member of the Avialesookhrana, Russia's aerial firefighting organization, leaps toward Siberia's boreal forest from an An-2 biplane. "The idea of actually parachuting into fires was a Soviet invention," says American wildfire historian Stephen Pyne. "In the 1930s these guys would climb out onto the wing of a plane, jump off, land in the nearest village, and rally the villagers to go fight the fire." Photo: Mark Thiessen/National Geographic
National Geographic has a great article about fighting wildland fires in Russia, specifically, smokejumping in Russia, where they have 4,000 jumpers working out of 340 bases across the country. According to the article written by Glenn Hodges, who with a photographer spent over three weeks observing and camping with the firefighters, it is a whole different world compared to fighting fire in the United States or Canada.
Here are some excerpts from the article, which is a must read:
It’s a shoestring operation—just $32 million a year to cover 11 time zones, less than the United States might spend in a few days of a heavy wildfire season. But with their mismatched uniforms and 50-year-old biplanes, Russian smokejumpers do what their countrymen do so well: make do with less. Less money, less equipment, and yes, less caution—even with fire.
When we break camp the next day to return to Shushenskoye, I’m surprised to see that the campfire is left smoldering. It’s a hot July day, which would be bad enough without the helicopter’s rotor wash blowing everything all over the place, but the risk doesn’t even seem to register with Alex, central Siberia’s most powerful firefighting official. In the U.S., firefighters would douse a fire on an ice floe in the dead of winter, especially with journalists around. But here they play the odds the way they see them, and perfect safety is burdensome and unnecessary. Fire shelters and fireproof clothing? Too expensive, but that’s OK, because the odds of needing them are low. Seat belts? Impractical. Thousands of times you will buckle and unbuckle, and probably for nothing. Campfire? It’s not going anywhere.
and…
The smokejumpers are true woodsmen—hunting, fishing, and trapping sable in the off-season to make ends meet, as nimble with an ax and knife as they are with their hands. When they land at a fire and make camp, they don’t just make tent poles and shovel handles from saplings, they make tables, benches, shelves—you name it. I’m amazed to see one guy make a watertight mug out of birch bark.
It’s a good thing their outdoor skills are solid, because their equipment often isn’t. When we return from the fire line, Valeriy discovers that one of his brand-new experimental smokejumper boots has melted. The rubber sole is a mash of black goo. His boots lasted “an hour, at best” he says angrily, before launching into a torrent of complaint about poor Russian equipment. “This tent like from Second World War,” he says, pointing at the canvas tent that will welcome mosquitoes and rain into our lives for days to come. The tents have no mosquito netting, the chain saws are heavy and unwieldy, the backpacks have no waist straps, the pull-on boots are made of cheap synthetic leather (and feet must be wrapped in towels to make them fit), the clothing is neither fire retardant nor water resistant. And everything is heavy.
Dale Longanecker retired last week after making 896 jumps out of perfectly good airplanes. Longanecker made his last jump out of the North Cascades Smokejumper Base when he reached the mandatory retirement age of 57. Here is an excerpt from an article in the New York Times:
WINTHROP, Wash. — Kristy Longanecker smiled while her husband fell from the clear blue sky.
Dale Longanecker, 57, is retiring after 38 years as a smoke jumper with the United States Forest Service.
“He got to live his dream,” said Ms. Longanecker, barely bothering to watch. “I’m envious of that sometimes. How many people get to live their dream?”
Thump.
So ended jump No. 896 — one final shock to the skeleton, one final perfect parachute roll, a practice run with no more reason to practice. Last month, Dale Longanecker turned 57, the mandatory retirement age for firefighters employed by the United States Forest Service. Friday was his last day on the job, and his was not just another retirement.
Mr. Longanecker has spent 38 years as one of the most elite of his kind, a smoke jumper. He has parachuted out of airplanes into some of the most remote wildfires in the West carrying little more than a shovel, a gallon of water and a bottle of ibuprofen. He was 19 when he made his first jump, and the Forest Service says his 896 jumps — 362 of which were into fires — are a record that may never be broken.
