(Hint: Aerial Firefighting is Awesome!)
Firefighting from the air does not come with a small price tag. Annual expenditures of aerial firefighting are in excess of $250 million per year. The cost, however, of this service is inconsequential compared to the good this type of firefighting provides to the public. But just what is modern aerial firefighting and how does it work?Aerial Firefighting uses a variety of different aircraft and other resources to fight fires. There are two primary types of aircraft used to fight wildfires: fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters. Rappellers and smokejumpers are also considered types of aerial firefighting equipment; they are descended to the wildfire by aircraft or repelled from helicopters. A number of different types of chemicals are also used to fight fires including gels, foam, water and other specially designed and formulated fire retardants.
When we hear the words aerial firefighting we often imagine huge airplanes dumping water from the air onto raging infernos of wildfires. But let’s clear up for a minute the terminology associated with aerial firefighting. Air tanker, or airtanker generally describe describes any type of fixed-wing airplane and the term(s) are used primarily in the United States. Canadians call these aircraft waterbombers. Let’s describe the process. An air attack generally refers to any use of an aerial resource for both rotorcraft and fixed-wing machinery. Air attacks describeny attacks on fires by air using fixed-wing airtankers, or helicopters.
Let’s discuss the two main types of equipment used in aerial firefighting: Airtankerss and helicopters. We’ll begin with airtankers. Airtankers are specially designed fixed-wing airplanes that carry water from the ground, preferably from an air tanker base. Amphibious aircraft and flying boats swoop down to the water surface and then proceed to skim water from rivers, reservoirs, and small lakes. The smallest plane is the Airtracker AT-802F and carries a payload of water of up to 800 gallons. The largest is type is the Boeing 747 Evergreen Supertanker. It may carry up to as much as 24,000 gallons of water at a time.
Aerial firefighting works best in conjunction with ground-based firefighting support.
