Two generations of firefighters from one family is not terribly unusual, and three generations is not unheard of, but there aren’t too many three-generation successions who are all pilots. The Venables in California are one of those successions.
Mike Venable has flown fires for the past 43 years, and he is in the third generation of Venables to fly the same aircraft — Cal Fire’s Tanker 73.
“My grandfather flew tanker 73. My dad flew a tanker 73, and I’m now flying a number seven three,” he told FOX Weather‘s Max Gorden. Thousands of calls come in to Cal Fire every year, and officials like to say they keep 95 percent of the fires to 10 acres or fewer. Their 60 aircraft at 14 air bases and 10 helicopter attack bases across the state ensure that any fire is no longer than 20 minutes away. California is home to the largest firefighting aircraft fleet in the world.
Venable and other pilots can be en route to a fire in just minutes.
“It is kind of like a pit crew, getting them in and out of here as fast as we can to get back to the incident,” said Brian Risen, manager at Hemet-Ryan. The base keeps up to 58,000 gallons of retardant at the ready.
Another asset for Cal Fire is its air attack planes, the OV-10 Broncos; in 1993 the state began acquiring them to replace the Cessna O-2A Skymasters in previous service.
Cal Fire ground crews fight fire from below while the pilots provide support from above. “We’ll try to somehow get down in the canyons and around them,” says Venable, “sometimes the houses and the pools or people on the ground – and try to facilitate exactly what his wishes are to get the retardant where he wants it.”
Like most pilots and most firefighters, though, Venable doesn’t see himself as the hero he’s sometimes tagged as. “I come to work every day, and I climb in this beautiful airplane that the taxpayers of this great state provided us, and I go out and I have a great time,” he says.