For the eighth time in nine seasons,
communications has been the leading contributing factor
in SAFENET submissions.
The majority of submissions deal with communications equipment,
the remainder being personal communications issues.
Think about the unique communication challenges we
face, let's start with the personalities, all different.
On your crew you get to know people like family,
while on an incident you may work with total strangers.
Each person presents a different communication challenge.
And that's just the beginning; let's add some stress,
confusion, and possibly a malfunctioning radio system.
Most of the time we can work through the problem,
but when we can't, the outcome can be very bad!
With aviation representing a huge component
on most incidents, establishing effective communications is more
critical than ever.
Consider the challenge, you've probably never met
the person you're talking to; they have a totally
different view of the incident and in some cases have never
fought fire on the ground.
However, they still need an incident briefing
and an appropriate tactical assignment.
[music playing] As an air attack, primarily
I manage incident air space and incident air traffic.
And also I work with the firefighters on the ground
in an effort to meet their objectives.
An air attack has several capabilities and limitations
as well: An air attack can size up a fire.
An air attack can find routes into the incident
for folks on the ground.
An air attack can fly out way in front of the incident
and look for values at risk.
Help the incident commander develop a tactical plan
and establish priorities.
There are some limitations with that:
the main one is fuel and then weather.
An air attack typically can stay over a fire
for about Three hours.
Also with weather, if there are low clouds or thunderstorms
in the area, then an air attack's gonna have to go in
and set down and wait for better weather.
Air attack is not a lookout, I would never ask air
attack to be a lookout.
They cannot stay over one particular location
for an uncertain amount of time.
However, an air attack can patrol your section of line,
look for spot fires, see if fire is hooking engines,
and gather any intelligence you need,
but never should air attack be considered a lookout.
Air attack can serve as a relay for ground resources in a couple
of different ways: if the incident commander can't talk
to dispatch on a repeater frequency,
they can't hit the repeater if they're
down in a hole or something.
Air attack can relay any information back
to dispatch that way.
Also, if crews can't talk to one-another on tactical
because of terrain or something is obscuring
that radio transmission, then we can just relay information
between crews and we're happy to do that.
As an initial attack IC when you get out there on your incident
and you have one/two aircraft out there, you're...fine working
with them but if you get more than three aircraft or three
or more aircraft on that incident, order an air attack
or a lead plane if you're just working with air tankers.
That aircraft can do so much more for you
than just directing the incident airspace and reduce your span
of control in that regard.
When air tankers are on final approach whether it's a SEAT
or air tanker they're flying low, a SEAT 60 ft
and a heavy air tanker One Hundred Fifty ft.
and they're flying pretty slow...
SEATs about 100 mph and a heavy air tanker is about 120.
And they are also very heavy... retardant weighs about
Nine point Two lbs / gal so a Three Thousand gal tanker
is Twenty Seven Thousand lbs. so when those airplanes
are coming in on final it's very
important that the line is clear because when that
retardant comes out of the airplane it's a mass
of Twenty Seven Thousand lbs. going 100 mph.
When an air attack's on scene they can see quite a ways away
on any thunderstorms that are building on it or any weather
that may be moving in.
Many times I've spotted lightning in the distance,
let ground crews know that thunderstorms are coming in.
We've either disengaged or changed our tactics.
The prerequisite to be an air tactical group supervisor is
either Division Supervisor or Incident Commander Type three.
Essentially there are three, three main fixed-wing
aerial supervisions.
The first one is the air tactical group supervisor
who orbits the fire at about Two Thousand Five Hundred feet
above ground level and manages the incident airspace
and coordinates priorities with the folks on the ground.
And it's important to know that when they're on their way
to an incident, they may be referred
to as Air Attack Fifty Five or Air Attack Thirty One
which refers to the tail number of the aircraft.
Once that air attack gets on an incident they become the
air attack for the incident and will assume a name such
as Snake Falls Air Attack or Fall Creek Air Attack,
something of that nature If there are enough airtankers
or helicopters on the fire, you're gonna have a lead plane
which works for the air attack.
And the purpose of the lead plane is
to direct airtanker operations.
Lead planes are a little different, they're always known
as Lead Forty nine, for example.
On the other side of that is the helicopter coordinator or HELCO
and the lead and the HELCO can be considered airborne task
force leaders: HELCO does helicopters,
the lead works with the airtankers.
The third type of fixed-wing aerial supervision is the aerial
supervision module or ASM, Aerial supervision modules
are always preceded with a B, a Bravo and then the
lead plane number.
So for example, Bravo 7, you know you're getting an ASM
and then a lead plane pilot as Lead 07.
And what the ASM is, is a combination of the lead plane
and the air attack and those two individuals are
in the same aircraft performing a dual-role mission;
they do all the air attack stuff with the folks on the ground
and they also coordinate airtanker operations.
It's a very efficient way to go about our business.
Typically an air attack aircraft will have Two-Three AM radios
and Two-Three FM radios.
In a Three-AM radio configuration, we're talking
to air traffic control if we're in the proximity of airports.
We're talking to helicopters on a designated rotor-wing
victor frequency.
And we're also talking to airtankers
on a designated fixed-wing frequency.
On the FM side if you've got Three FMs, we're talking
to dispatch on one FM, we're talking to folks on the ground
on a designated air-to-ground frequency.
And then on our third FM we'd be monitoring Command
on large fires or perhaps a tactical frequency
on smaller fires.
It's pretty hard to keep track of who's talking to us
because of all the radios are going off with up
to 6 radios it can be a lot of noise in your headset.
So once we're on an incident I'll just have my air-to-ground
volume tweaked up a little bit so I can always talk
to the folks on air-to-ground but it's important
that they realize that if I'm talking to an airtanker
or dispatch on another frequency,
then I may not hear them calling, so the best thing
to do is try again, if you still don't get us,
wait for a few minutes and call us back;
realizing that we have all those radios up there in the airplane
and we're talking to somebody else and we're busy.
[radio chatter] Initial contact when we arrive
on scene is typically somewhat chaotic, there's a lot going on,
it's an emerging incident, the ground crews are busy trying
to figure out how to anchor into the fire and get established,
figure out priorities, a lot of traffic between dispatch,
so it's pretty hard to get a word in edgewise on the radio.
In my opinion the chaos is something to expect
and you can learn to live with but you can also manage it.
You know its coming, if you know aerial resources are enroute
to your incident, be prepared for them, have that,
have somebody up on that air-to-ground frequency
and have a plan for those guys once they get there
so we're not wasting a lot of time orbiting the incident
when we could be working for ya.
One of the biggest pitfalls is conflicting priorities
on large fires, you may have three or four critical divisions
and everybody wants helicopters, everybody wants airtankers,
but we can only do so much, we have limited capability
in that regard.
So it's important for the divisions to get with Ops
and figure out which is actually top priority
so we can focus on that.
If you have multiple air resources and no air attack
on your incident because that resource has been diverted
to another start, think about setting some of them down,
it's not safe to have all those aircraft in that airspace.
If you have Two helicopters, Two SEATs,
and a heavy airtanker coming in, make sure you've got
aerial supervision on order, whether it be a lead,
air attack or an ASM.
When you know those aircraft are in-bound it's time
to implement your plan for talking to them.
Whether it be designating someone to be the air contact
or something like that.
Just be ready to talk to them and have
that frequency being monitored.
Invariably you get up on scene on a fire
and all hell's breaking loose, there's chaos everywhere,
dispatch is cranking, you're busy trying
to do a size-up and whatnot.
In the mean time you've got tankers, helicopters
and aerial supervision orbiting your fire,
with nobody to talk to and nothing to do.
When aerial supervision arrives on scene we expect a briefing
from the ground contact, whether it be an IC
or division supervisor and that, the briefing should consist
of what the intent is, what your objectives are for the incident,
what your priorities are for the aircraft,
keep in mind it's important to have your and a back-up plan,
cause if our primary target gets obscured
by smoke then we still have something we can go do.
When firefighters are communicating directly
with helicopters and their trying to get them into a drop
or into a landing spot, the first thing they need
to do is establish visual contact with the helicopter.
Once they do that give them a quick mirror flash and say,
I'm at your 12 o'clock at three miles.
If they get the flash, they helicopter pilot will come back,
I've got your flash, I'm on my way in.
And then from there if you're directing a bucket drop,
have a panel on the ground, or be waving a fusee,
some sort of visual reference on the ground
that that helicopter can verify as the target.
Once the helicopter gets the target, get out of the way,
have them make the drop, and then you can give them feedback
from there on the next drop.
The best way to describe a target to aerial supervision is
to use the fire anatomy.
For example: heel, head, left flank, right flank,
left shoulder, right shoulder.
Try to avoid using compass directions
since we're flying either a left-hand or right-hand pattern,
our compass is constantly rotating so the best way is
to say, anchor in at the heel and work up the left flank.
As opposed to saying, work up from the southeast corner
to the northwest corner.
When your tankers arrive on scene they may
or may not have a lead plane or any aerial supervision
with them.
So they will be talking directly to you
if they're initial attack rated.
Before an air tanker is going to come in and drop
for you they're going to need to know the location.
They're going to need to know hazards.
The coverage level of retardant you want them to use,
and whether or not the line is going
to be clear for them to drop.
If the target description to the airtanker is unclear,
one thing you can do is just have them fly a dry run
over the target to make sure that you're both
on the same page.
The pattern that tankers typically fly over fires is just
like an airport traffic pattern.
It would be a left-hand pattern comprised of an upwind,
crosswind, downwind, base and final leg.
As a ground resource you can do so many things for us
because you're on the ground.
You can get temperature, relative humidity,
and wind information to the aerial supervision
or to the tankers and helicopters working
on your fire.
Wind is very important for airtankers and helicopters
for two reasons: one is the effectiveness
of the bucket drops or the retardant.
Once wind gets up to Twenty miles an hour or so,
retardant is not going to be very effective,
it's all going to drift away.
The other thing is the safety of the aircraft.
In that kind of wind there is going to be turbulence
if we're working in canyons and over ridges.
There's going to be mountain waves and rotors.
And it's going to be a detrimental effect
to the aircraft to have them out there working
in windy conditions.
Also as a ground resource it's important
to relay any information as to other hazards,
anything that would do damage potentially to an aircraft,
whether it be snags that are really hard to see,
or ridge that is obscured in smoke,
maybe a cell phone tower that's really hard to see from the air.
Any towers, power lines, anything that would hurt an
aircraft at all, don't hesitate to give us a call and let
us know that they're there.
As you can tell from your personal experience
and from viewing this module, aviation communication
can be complex and has a lot of variables.
This next exercise is intended to give you more
experience communicating with aviation resources
and can be applied to all situations you deal with
while working on an incident.