Planes doing some crazy stuff right outside work all freaking day……

APLMAN99
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APLMAN99
This has been going on pretty steady all day after a fire that started just out of town last night. I think that there were 6 planes total in rotation, along with 4 or 5 helos.

So far no homes burned, but it had to be VERY close for several of the ones I could see.

https://youtu.be/IuBkcwMY5oA
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buenavides
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buenavides 7/14/2021 9:13pm
7/14/2021 9:13pm
Dude, that was cool and dangerous at the same time. Why are they doing this?
APLMAN99
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APLMAN99 7/14/2021 9:28pm
7/14/2021 9:28pm
buenavides wrote:
Dude, that was cool and dangerous at the same time. Why are they doing this?
The fire at the north end of town. It’s on a pretty steep hill and lots of homes in the way, the water drops are probably the best way to protect those homes.

It’s actually crazier than it looks on video because the trees hide a bridge (actually 2 of them) that the planes have to clear before dropping to the water, and they end up flying under power lines from one side of the river to the other before they begin their climb.

There’s also a big airliner type jet dropping retardant on the fire as well.
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66TR66
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66TR66 7/14/2021 10:49pm
7/14/2021 10:49pm
Wow, nice workplace.
Those pilots must be amazing.

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APLMAN99
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APLMAN99 7/15/2021 6:57am
7/15/2021 6:57am
GeorgiePorgie wrote:
You’ve got some great support tracking it all. Hope the fire is mitigated.

https://www.arnorth.army.mil/JFLCC/
I haven’t seen any military yet, but I’m staying away from that end of town so I likely wouldn’t. Seen lots of ‘out of area’ civilian firefighters rolling through, though.

Back in 94 there was a really large fire just north of here that nearly took out my in-laws new house up the Entiat River, the Tyee Fire.

They had fire personnel from just about everywhere, even tribal Alaskan units. They brought in several units of Marines that were camped just a few hundred meters up the road from my in-laws house. One morning I was driving up to their house to help my FIL with his sprinklers and I rounded a curve to see close to 100 Marines running (NOT jogging!) ahead of me. I followed them for about a mile till I got to the house. My FIL’s best buddy who was a Sheriff’s Deputy was there and told me that they were running like that every morning after fighting fire all night because their Sgt thought that they weren’t tired enough to sleep all day without the extra PT.

Those guys were phucking crazy…..
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GeorgiePorgie 7/15/2021 7:21am
7/15/2021 7:21am Edited Date/Time 7/15/2021 7:23am
Military last in first out. our goal is to never have visible presence. We try our best to make everything look great and independent. selfless service. Always a strictly supportive structure.
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captmoto
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captmoto 7/15/2021 9:36am
7/15/2021 9:36am
From what I remember a while back, the military gets the call when private contractors are all used up. Some stories I've heard of Marines on wildland fires are legendary. They usually get cold trailing or overhaul duty since many times they don't have a lot of firefighting experience or creds required by USFS. I thought we should have used the military a lot sooner, especially air assets. They should have been available on immediate need and could be released when private contractors became available.
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APLMAN99
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APLMAN99 7/15/2021 11:02am
7/15/2021 11:02am
captmoto wrote:
From what I remember a while back, the military gets the call when private contractors are all used up. Some stories I've heard of Marines on...
From what I remember a while back, the military gets the call when private contractors are all used up. Some stories I've heard of Marines on wildland fires are legendary. They usually get cold trailing or overhaul duty since many times they don't have a lot of firefighting experience or creds required by USFS. I thought we should have used the military a lot sooner, especially air assets. They should have been available on immediate need and could be released when private contractors became available.
I looked up the details from the 94 Tyee Fire, they had 2 550 man battalions fighting that one and they were definitely front line (huge shortages of fire fighting personnel nationwide). I probably wouldn’t have seen them then, though, if it weren’t for going up to help out family and such. Most of the firefighters aren’t really visible to the general population here because they just camp and fight fire. You never really see groups being brought to the stores, etc. Or you can’t tell who they are at least. You do see the rigs going in to get supplies that the catering companies don’t provide, but those are usually 2-4 people at a time.
GeorgiePorgie 7/15/2021 12:46pm
7/15/2021 12:46pm Edited Date/Time 7/15/2021 12:47pm
captmoto wrote:
From what I remember a while back, the military gets the call when private contractors are all used up. Some stories I've heard of Marines on...
From what I remember a while back, the military gets the call when private contractors are all used up. Some stories I've heard of Marines on wildland fires are legendary. They usually get cold trailing or overhaul duty since many times they don't have a lot of firefighting experience or creds required by USFS. I thought we should have used the military a lot sooner, especially air assets. They should have been available on immediate need and could be released when private contractors became available.
That creates a multitude of hardships. One example: Competing for airspace…there’s only so many planes that can land. So many schedules etc…interrupting local authorities planned response. It adds a layer of complexity. Sometimes it’s less of a burden by standing by and waiting until local is exhausted then state exhausted and last ditch effort get requested….the. Fed can prop up until the locals are resupplied and ready to get back into the fight.
KMC440
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KMC440 7/15/2021 1:48pm
7/15/2021 1:48pm
I'd freaking love to fly one of those and do an in-flight reload. That's just got to be a blast adding elevator to compensate for the increased weight.
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JOE_SPROCKETS#1 7/15/2021 2:45pm
7/15/2021 2:45pm
Awesome. Anyone know how many trips the same plane/pilot does in a shift? Like landing a jet on carrier kinda stuff. Hero’s for sure.
APLMAN99
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APLMAN99 7/15/2021 4:18pm
7/15/2021 4:18pm
JOE_SPROCKETS#1 wrote:
Awesome. Anyone know how many trips the same plane/pilot does in a shift? Like landing a jet on carrier kinda stuff. Hero’s for sure.
They have been pretty non-stop all day for the last 2 days. The refuel times can't be more than a half hour I think because they are literally buzzing my office every 10-15 minutes max for the most part. The smaller 2 of the planes have moved upriver, I think, but the 2 bigger ones have been dipping pretty much constantly since about 7AM again today.

They must change out crews when they refuel, so I'd guess about 6 hour shifts or so?
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Johnny Lock 7/15/2021 6:37pm
7/15/2021 6:37pm
Y’all probably know this all already and it’s just information but I was talking to one of my co-workers I rarely see yesterday - I was working OT. He’s on the fire-team at work (i work in a petrochemical/refinery complex) and a district fire chief for a suburb of Houston.

We were talking about fires and got to talking about wildfires and the West Coast. He’s had limited experience with those fires only going out to Cali for a couple of weeks for one wildfire. What I gathered:

1) the federal wildfire guys don’t get paid well for what they do.
2) you have to get way, way in front of a wildfire with water.
3) you are better off starting a burn - and having the wildfire pull the burn towards it to stop.
4) wildfires create their own weather
5) even with water drops and pump trucks he said it was amazing how those fires just jumped over. They manned a ridge alongside a highway and were hitting it with water as instructed and he said the fire came and just jumped over the highway to the next side. Said he felt pretty powerless.
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profeshenal125 7/15/2021 8:02pm
7/15/2021 8:02pm
Portland to Texas is very dry. I ran out of hrs in Utah, the mountains where on fire. Breathing that smoke all night is horrible, the smoke just hovers in the air.

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