Getting the Drop on Wildfires : Firefighters Use Helicopters in Early Assaults to Stop Blazes’ Spread

Helicopter 901 clattered toward the towering pillar of smoke with six men and a woman who would charge the wildfire alone, with only hand tools and little chance of getting away if things went badly.

Just two weeks before, a firestorm had trapped a crew from the helicopter attack, or helitack, base in Vina. With no escape route, the firefighters weathered the inferno inside heat-resistant fire tents. It was too much for one of the firefighters, who panicked and ran. He was rescued by a crew captain and was later fired.

Since 1973, one member of California’s airborne firefighting corps has been killed and 11 have been seriously injured.

Aboard Helicopter 101, Fire Protection Capt. Dan Burns of the state Department of Forestry explained that once the helicopter drops off the firefighters, they are largely on their own.

“We’re breaking all the rules by going in in front of the fire and watching our escape route fly away,” he said.

The idea is to swiftly control a small fire before it gets big.

California, which claims to have the largest firefighting force in the world, places more emphasis on helitack than does the U.S. Forest Service, which has had to reduce crew sizes to five or less due to budget cutbacks. California, with nine helicopter bases, has more helitack units than any other state.

“Air 901 is five minutes out,” radioed pilot Jim Costa, his eyes scanning the flames racing over a mountain on a rugged oak-studded ranch in Tehama County, northwest of Chico.

Gloved hands of the crew members rechecked yellow fire-resistant suits, plastic helmets and belts bristling with up to 30 pounds of gear.

Each member of the crew, reduced by one to make room for a news reporter, packed a book-size pouch containing one of the heat-reflecting “shake and bake” tents they may have to dive into if they are overtaken by fire.

Hand signals flashed across the cramped compartment of the lime-green UH-1F “Huey” helicopter, one of the workhorses of the Vietnam War.

Suddenly, the helicopter tilted so the crew was staring out side windows at flames below. As 901 circled the blaze, the two crew captains and pilot--in a clipped language of their own--picked a landing zone and path of attack for the firefighters.

“This is the kind of fire that will be up to us to hold,” said Burns, the 35-year-old lead captain.

Air tankers dispatched to drop fire retardant had yet to arrive. Fire engines were still lumbering over winding roads miles away.

The chopper touched down in an explosion of dust at the base of the mountain. The crew swung into action.

Some pulled shovels and hoe-like brooms from an outside compartment, uncomfortably close to the copter’s searing exhaust spewing into the 100-degree day.

Others unpacked a bag and hooked it under the helicopter so the ship, stripped of the crew’s weight, could drop water from a nearby pond on the blaze and on the firefighters if things went badly.

The crew bounded up the mountain.

The helicopter that should have lifted off behind them did not. An air controller in a small fixed-wing airplane overhead had ordered it to hold. Within seconds, an air tanker roared over dropping retardant. The helicopter climbed and swung toward the pond.

Burns waved half the crew one way around the fire; Capt. Mike Rivas, with the rest, went the other way. Flames licked at their elbows as they hacked control lines through walls of smoke.

Fire snaked through grass, dying at the control line. An inferno in an oak tree died in a crushing torrent of water dumped by the helicopter.

Twenty minutes after landing, there came cheers of victory. The firefighters had linked up after encircling the fire. Their job was done: Ground crews were arriving.

The engine crews would handle “mop up,” the tedious, slog-through-the-ashes job of dousing every last ember. Investigators would probe the cause, but it was evident. A Jeep, a pile of firewood and a chain saw had been abandoned on the hilltop.

The helitack crew, which had held the blaze to three acres, would fly back to base to be in place for the next run.

The helicopter is playing an increasing role in wilderness firefighting because it is more like a fire engine than an air tanker, according to a recent state study. Besides shuttling a helitack crew and dropping water, it can be used for reconnaissance, rescue, evacuation and cargo delivery.

The effectiveness of the program is reflected in this year’s statistics in California. As of Sept. 25, 6,056 fires had burned 68,880 acres, down from last year’s 6,831 blazes over 167,696 acres.

The human cost of the 16-year-old program is high at times.

Helitack crewman Denis Lee Cullins was burned to death in a 1987 fire in Northern California’s Mendocino region.

The Vina crew itself was forced to deploy fire shelters as a wall of flames roared at them during Lassen County’s Eagle fire in July.

“We could hear the fire and the wind roaring from inside the tents,” said Mike Weaver, a 22-year-old crew member with five years of helitack experience.

A firefighter with less experience ran instead of deploying a fire tent. Rivas, 33, finally was able to hold up one of the shelters so he and the firefighter could stand behind it.

“It wasn’t planned. I wasn’t trying to be a hero or anything,” Rivas said.

No one was injured, but the firefighter was fired.