[music] Paracargo’s been around, historically, for
a very long time, even before smoke jumping was developed
And that system has progressed over the last 80 years
And it’s been adopted by the military and organizations all over the world as an efficient
and safe way to deliver supplies to the line, whether it be the fire line or a
>> Good drop, good drop! >> front lines for combat troops.
All the bases in the lower 48 and in Alaska can deliver the standard cache items. Here
in McCall we can do a fresh food delivery. Not all the bases do offer fresh food
can throw boats, fuel, palletized cargo, they do it regularly, their program is way more
developed than anything we’ve got in the lower 48 right now.
Anybody can order paracargo. It’s utilized primarily on those Type 3, 4 and 5 incidents
where logistics aren’t quite set up yet. However, on those Type 1 and Type 2 incidents,
especially for isolated divisions, it’s a great way to deliver lots of supplies quickly
and provide food, water and fuel to keep going ahead, while leaving the helicopter operation
intact for buckets, o r crew transport, for that matter.
Once you’ve gone through the channels of ordering it through dispatch, and once that
order is received here at the base, it really only takes several hours for us to wrap, strap
and load it on the plane. As far as what we have accessible for supplies,
we can deliver virtually anything that’s available through the general cache system.
Here in McCall we’re a mile away from the warehouse, so with that we have access to
pumps, hose, fuel, chain saws, MRE’s, QB’s, you name it we can get it out of the warehouse.
And additionally, if necessary, we can go to a local saw shop and get specialty items
And we can also do fresh food, for anywhere from 20 to 100 people, and we package that
food straight from the grocery store. Package it in boxes, wrap it and strap it, and using
a combination of cardboard boxes, 150 quart coolers, and we throw it out of the airplane
so that we can feed crews, anywhere up to 5 crews out in the field for up to 3 days.
We have an information packet in the fresh food boxes that we deliver out of McCall,
they give you an idea of how to prepare some of the food , and what your inventory is
We can offer a jumper to come in and help organize the fresh food delivery. They can
help gather all the cargo, climb a tree if necessary to get it out
you know, a cargo could end up in the trees. And when that happens you need to safely assess
whether you can cut the tree down to get to the cargo, or if you need a smoke jumper there
to climb the tree and get the cargo down safely for you.
The cost per meal is cheaper than MRE’s, yeah, and we feel that it’s better for you,
and provides a little bit higher sense of morale out there on the line. When you get
to eat an apple or an orange and chase it with a ham and cheese sandwich that you made
it’s a pretty good deal. You can reference the IRPG for paracargo delivery
and it’ll give you some good protocol to follow to receive your supplies. You just
need an acre for the cargo to land. You need to look at it like a retardant drop. You want
to clear the line of any people. You don’t want to have folks underneath where we’re
throwing cargo on both the arrival or the departure route of the aircraft. Make contact
with the aircraft and give them a good target description. Make sure that you have a panel
out there. The spotter will be talking to you. Make sure your drop zone’s clear. It’s
really simple. Once the drop’s finished and the plane has
cleared the area it’s safe to go in and start organizing the cargo.
You’re going to need a few hands. Because the bundles aren’t going to be light. They’re
going to range anywhere from 70 to 200 pounds. When you show up to a cargo bundle, try to
treat those parachutes with some respect. We try to use those over and over again.
If you look at the bundle a little bit you’ll figure out how to detach it,
each jump base does it a little bit differently, but you don’t need to cut anything. A pocket
knife’s not required. The parachutes will get back to us various
ways, but ideally, try to bundle up the lines as best you can and get those parachutes stuffed
back into their deployment bags, which you’ll see, or wrap them up in a tight bundle, put
them in a cardboard box and label that box. We’d appreciate it.
The McCall paracargo program has thrown over 3,000 bundles of cargo, and upwards of 250
tons of cargo has been delivered on the line in the last 5 years. We’ve had a high success
rate, and it’s what we use to supply all of our smoke jumpers when they’re first
on scene, and there’s no reason other fire resources shouldn’t utilize it as well.
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