2013Load and Return Closed Caption Final
Basically 3 types of fire chemicals.
Retardant is the one we use most commonly, most widely used product we have out there.
Thereís also foams and gels.
Working with foam when youíre dealing with scooper aircraft, if you can use it, it is
so much more effective.
I mean, it makes like a 70% increase on that water; youíll actually get that absorption
into the fuel and it doesnít just run off.
So use it when you can.
Retardant is most commonly used because it has some capabilities that the foams and gels
donít have.
Because of their chemical makeup they have salts, usually itís in the form of phosphorous,
which actually, once dried on the fuel theyíre able to retard the effect of the fire from
burning through that fuel in a dry form, where the others, foams and gels, once theyíre
dry itís basically as if you had water there.
Thereís no retarding ability.
So you can use retardant long term.
You can go out ahead of the fire, use it to maybe pre-treat a ridge up ahead of the fire,
or go indirect on parts of the fire.
Retardantís changed a lot over the years.
Prior to 2005 there were some ingredients in retardants, cyanide being one of them,
that made it very harmful if applied in a waterway or to a lot of aquatics, very lethal.
The standard, and the bar, has been raised and raised over the last few years, where
weíre getting more and more less toxic chemicals there, we donít apply retardant within 300
feet of a waterway.
And it doesnít matter if they have aquatic life in them or not, we just assume they do.
Just recently, through the Forest Service EIS, theyíve expanded some of those buffer
zones because of concerns about certain species that may be sensitive to fire chemicals, and
all these areas are well mapped out.
You can find them; each forest has a set of maps for them.
There are exceptions to using retardant or fire chemicals in avoidance areas or these
buffer zones.
The Forest Service has just one exception that they use, thatís life and safety.
Thatís pretty broad, but any time that the use of fire chemicals aerially can expect
to alleviate the concern, theyíre certainly authorized to be used in that capacity.
The question comes up is retardant, or fire chemicals harmful to firefighters, and the
short answer is, it can be very slightly irritating.
Soap and water will take it off your skin.
Even in your eyes, just flush it out with water.
Itís not expected to cause any serious problem, even inhalation or swallowing of it shouldnít
cause you any problems.
Donít recommend drinking it, though.
Tactically when youíre using retardant, you need to be thinking about how you want to
employ that retardant.
Try not to get too fancy with it.
Itís just like any other line building tool, if you treat it as such youíll be just fine.
Anchor, flank, and pinch is your best tactic.
Prior to the drop, too, our interaction with the ground folks is going to be getting ahold
of them going ok, is that the target you want, is this what you want to accomplish?
And then at that point, before we go live with the run, weíre going to ask you to clear
the line.
We want to make sure everybodyís out of the way, that we can do it safely enough.
I know you donít want to get too far off, but we need you off enough that weíre comfortable
that weíre not going to hit you with a mass of retardant, and roll you down the hill.
Retardant weighs about 9 pounds a gallon once you mix it; what youíve got to remember is
that you load a 2,000 gallon large air tanker with it, youíve got probably 9 tons of worth
of weight coming out of that airplane.
Weíre flying at 150 to 200 feet above the ground, weíre flying at 120 knots, which
is a very similar air speed to what the civilians, the contract carriers provide.
Iím aiming for approximately 100 feet above the canopy.
And the reason for that is that weíre dropping at about 120 knots, 130 miles an hour type
of thing, so when the doors open the load is travelling at that speed, and of course
it slows down in the air flow.
And if the load is still moving forward as it hits the trees then itís going to get
excellent coverage on this side, but thereís a shadow here, and of course that can support
the fire.
Generally for a grass fuel type youíre looking at a one and a two.
You get into the brush, three and a four.
Five, six as you get up into the timber, and then as you get into slash, even higher than
that.
But youíve got to remember, coverage levels are based on when they went through the models
of coverage levels, and ranking them out in the fuel types that they were using, they
were using standard conditions.
The business is more Kentucky windage.
We try a 2, it doesnít hold, seems to be burning into it too much, let us know.
Thatís information that we need back from the ground guys.
With the ICS rating system with air tankers, they type them just like they do anything
else.
It starts out with Type 1 air tankers.
Type 1 air tankers are anything over 3,000 gallons.
What youíre looking at behind us here is one of our 2 DC-10ís that weíre quite proud
of because of the way they perform.
What this brings to the party is capacity, jet speed, and the ability to do a very long
line, a very wide line, and we can also segment the drop in as many segments as youíd like
to have it.
The whole deal, despite a few controls, is really this tank system.
This is 11,600 gallons.
The white doors youíll see on the bottom are identical; each of those is identical
to the door on an Ericson Air Crane.
Weíre talking about flow rates here that can approach 1,500 gallons a second.
Thereís a perception that because this airplane is so large that itís less mobile, less maneuverable,
and less able to deal with gnarly terrain.
That perception is not correct.
The airplane doesnít know what terrain is under it.
if you have an airplane that is significantly under its certified gross weight, which ours
is because we donít have 11 or 12 hours of fuel in it, and we donít have 380 people
in it with their baggage going to Hawaii, and we have added 100,000 pounds external,
we still come in almost 200,000 pounds lighter than this airplane was certified to fly.
That enhances our performance.
The DC-10 is crewed by 3 professionals, the pilot or captain in the left forward-facing
seat, the first officer, who might also be a captain, in the right-hand forward-facing
seat, and the flight engineer.
I think thereís a couple of things that someone on the ground ought to know.
Iíve not been a firefighter on the ground but Iíve been under this airplane on the
ground a few times, and thereís a little bit of retardant on this hat.
Iíll guarantee you that when this airplane comes over, as big as it is, and as loud as
you may think it is, and as magnificent as it may look, what really matters is whatís
coming out of those tanks and what is it going to do.
And the mission is to get that stuff on the ground in the thickness and in the place that
you want it.
In the Type 1 air tanker realm also you have the MAFFíS aircraft, which are military C-130ís.
Itís a little bit different system because itís a pressurized system, so youíre going
to see some characteristics with that tanking system that you wonít see on anything else.
Itís going to be a long line, itís going to be a narrow line.
The coverage levels are going to be pretty good for you.
The C-130 airframe has been around since the ë50ís, and itís a Lockheed-Martin product.
Theyíve been improving on the model; in fact, they continue to make the airframe.
This is airplane was manufactured in 1994.
In terms of crew, thereís the aircraft commander that sits in left seat, a co-pilot that sits
in the right, the flight engineer that sits in this seat here; behind you is the navigatorís
position.
In the back, here, thereís two seats for two loadmasters.
. What you see, what weíre standing in front of is the aft end, the back end of the MAFFS
system, and itís a roll on, roll off system.
Itís designed to be installed in a matter of a few hours in the back of, like I said,
any C-130.
Itís an Aero Union product, and what they did is they built a main tank that holds up
to 4000 gallons of retardant, but, for performance and weight issues, we only take it up to 3000.
Another feature of our system is that we have now is the capability of dropping foam.
This is our nozzle, the technical term for it is a pintle.
All the stuff that was inside basically the discharge and the pressure comes right up
to the backside of this orange device, this stopper, this pintle device.
So when we show up on a fire our call sign is MAFFS, and by the way thatís an acronym
for Modular Airborne Firefighting System.
So itís MAFFS and then the number we have on the side of the airplane, so MAFFS 5 is
the airplane that Iím on.
The most common air tankers that youíre going to run into just on a day to day basis is
going to be what we consider the large air tanker fleet, and most of those are going
to be in your Type 2 realm of rankings.
And thatís going to include the P2-V, which is a piston with jet assist aircraft that
typically runs 2,200 gallons of retardant.
Sometimes you get a little bit of scalloping with them.
If youíre doing long, single door lines, it might not be as consistent as youíll see
with a constant flow system.
Some of the advantages, though, of that doored system are, if itís heavy fuel types and
you really need to thump it in there, you can open those doors in double-door sets that
itíll really get a nice wham to the retardant.
Also, coming in to the fleet weíve got the BAE-146, which is the 4 engine jet that youíll
probably be seeing out there.
The big thing to remember with it, it is fast!
Also within the Type 2 realm youíre going to find the Canadian air tankers that have
been coming down the last few years.
The Con Air 580 is a beautiful airplane.
It does a really nice job in that Type 2 realm.
It has a constant flow tank on it.
The aircraft is really maneuverable, itís got good speed, and it makes a beautiful retardant
line.
There were about 1,000 Convairs made in San Diego, California, in the mid-50ís.
The first one was converted into an air tanker in the year 2000.
The tank thatís on the aircraft was built by Aero Union, and it holds 2,100 U.S. gallons.
Hereís a half-a-load at coverage level 3, that might be a load for a grass fire.
Heavy timber, probably going to drop the whole load at coverage level 6, maybe coverage level
8, and a lightning strike drop, maybe 1/6 at max, and thatís kind of a blob.
Some single engine aircraft fall within that Type 3 classification also, and the reason
they do is because theyíre right at 800 gallons of retardant and they have an approved tank,
so you will also see them ranked in there.
Now, the same aircraft may be ranked in a Type 4 classification.
Then weíve got the Fire Boss, which is typically a single engine air tanker on floats.
That oneís usually carrying about 600 gallons, just because of the weight of the floats.
Tactically, when youíre working with SEATís, a of couple things to keep in mind.
Always order more than you think you need.
Their operational feasibility really kind of revolves around a 70 mile dispatch, so
you need to set them up as close as you can and get as quick a turnaround as you can.
Also within the Type 3 realm weíve got the S-2 turbines that you will see out of California.
Does a really nice job, since theyíve converted to a constant flow tank, theyíre very maneuverable,
they do a very nice job but youíll usually see them in California or bordering states
of California.
I treat a scooper maybe even more like a helicopter than I do an air tanker, the best thing you
can do with those guys is, if they got a water source really close, is not mess with them.
You give them a target and a ground contact and you just let them go to work.