The Fire Choppers

The brush fire season, when walls of flames leap through the thick chaparral of the city’s hills, is a hectic time of year for the 16 firefighters who belong to the Los Angeles Fire Department Helicopter Company, based at Van Nuys Airport.

The company, which handles emergencies throughout the city, helped fight about 1,000 fires last year, either as flying observation and command posts or by dropping water onto flames, said Capt. Michael Ambarian, commander of the unit.

Last year the company also handled about 200 emergency rescue calls, requiring tactics ranging from hoisting a trapped person by cable out of a remote canyon to landing in a busy intersection to picking up an injured person for transportation to a hospital.

Begun in 1961, when it had one helicopter and three pilots, the company now has seven helicopters, including a recently purchased Bell 412, a twin-engine aircraft capable of dropping 350 gallons of water with each pass over a fire, pilot Pat Quinn said.

With the worst of the brush fire season probably still to come in early fall, the company is focusing its attention on nearby hillsides, identifying vulnerable areas and taking part in controlled burns.

Quick Turnaround at Heliport

The helicopters can replenish their water tanks in less than two minutes and continue making drops for several hours or several days, as was the case in last year’s brush fire near Malibu, Quinn said. According to the Fire Department, it takes eight men half an hour to lay 1,500 feet of hose up a slope of 70%. A helicopter can accomplish the job in 53 seconds.

The pilots, who work 24-hour shifts, must have served at least four years as firemen on the ground and earned a helicopter pilot’s license on their own before they can apply for the department’s 200-hour pilot-training course.

The choppers are not without detractors. For years, the noise of the helicopters has annoyed some residents who live near the airport.

“The noise just blows your nerves,” said Linda Mackinson, a member of the Van Nuys Airport Citizens Advisory Council. She said anti-noise homeowners believe there are too many training flights.

The Fire Department has said that it tries to route takeoffs and landings as far as possible from residential areas.

The helicopter firefighting company has had only one serious accident. Two firefighters were killed in 1973 when their helicopter struck a cable and crashed during a training mission in Big Tujunga Canyon.