Video by Senior Master Sgt. John Rohrer 140th Wing Public Affairs
This video is a unique angle of a Blackhawk helicopter delivering water to a fire using a bambi bucket. When the helicopter is in position, the crew releases the water to extinguish or suppress the fire below. The shots consist of a take off from the staging field, dips from a nearby pond to get water and several drops on two different fire locations. This action takes place in the High Park Fire to try to mitigate spot fires in the area west of Fort Collins, Colorado.
I hope someone can explain this to me. And to be clear.
I'M NOT THERE SO I DON'T KNOW!
But it appears that they're dropping on fires in unpopulated areas instead of by houses. Why? People are losing homes. Not throwing stones and I've never even had a real conversation with a fire fighter so what's the theory here.
i did some searching online, it looks like those drops are to contain the eastern side of the fire, here is a blog post about it google came up with with a good map, http://wildfiretoday.com/2012/06/10/high-park-fire-update-and-map-june-10-2012-very-active-saturday-night/, the story notes the high park fire which is closest to fort collins, so it seems like focusing on the spot fires as the story above says is to protect fort collins metropolitan area, but i am not a firefighter nor do i have any first hand information but would be my guess.
ReplyDeleteAlso, it should be noted that water evaporates fast, and thus basically has to be dropped directly on the fire in order to make a difference immediately.
ReplyDeleteThe red retardant that you see dropped by fixed-wing aircraft can be effective for several days.
This means that you'll see helicopters dipping and dropping water directly on the flames to stop or slow them down, while you'll see larger planes dropping lines of retardant to prevent the fire from proceeding past a certain point (such as protecting homes).
I can't find the video though I wish I could... Last week there was a fire that was threatening a small city in Utah. A resident captured a video of a Neptune fire-tanker dropping a line of retardant basically along all of the back yards in the neighborhood as a fire-break. It was incredible.
thanks Mark. that makes it alot more clear. if you can find that vid shoot it my way. can't wait to see it.
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