Boundary County's firefighters take training aloft

BONNERS FERRY — Boundary County firefighters gained valuable skills learning to fill fire fighting air tankers July 31 at the Boundary County airport.

Firefighters from North Bench, Hall Mountain and South Boundary joined Idaho Department of Lands wildland firefighters, Jim Newton from the Coeur d’Alene office of Idaho Department of Lands and pilot Steve Willey for a training exercise that familiarized the crews with air tanker filling procedures and ground operations in support of the Coeur d’Alene Interagency Dispatch center operations.

“Using local ground crews to refill planes decreases the response time and allows us to use the aircraft more efficiently,” said Newton. “Otherwise, the planes would have to refill each time in Coeur d’Alene.”

The Coeur d’Alene Interagency Dispatch center is in charge of wildland firefighting operations for the U.S. Forest Service, Idaho Department of Lands, the Coeur d’Alene Tribe and the Bureau of Land Management.

Working in conjunction with the National and Northern Rockies mobilization of  fire fighting resources, the CDC has initial attack dispatch responsibilities for the St. Joe ranger district, West St. Joe and Ponderosa area and Coeur d’Alene Tribe in the southern panhandle, the Coeur d’Alene River ranger district and Mica and Cataldo fire protective districts in the central panhandle and Priest Lake, Sandpoint and Bonners Ferry ranger districts and Pend Oreille, Priest Lake and Kootenai Valley fire protective districts in the northern Panhandle.

“Using local ground crews to refill planes decreases the response time and allows us to use the aircraft more efficiently,” said Newton. “Otherwise, the planes would have to refill each time in Coeur d’Alene.”

Willey, a pilot with 11 years of experience brought a two-seat Air tractor 802 air tanker, a single-engine low-wing aircraft similar to the kind used for crop-dusting operations. The trip from Coeur d’Alene to the Boundary County Airport takes him about 45 minutes, he said.

The aircraft has a 1,350 horsepower turbine engine with a gross vehicle weight of 16,000 pounds. With an 800 gallon tank in the belly, the aircraft is able to fly for 4 1/2 hours on a single load of fuel.

For the training, South Boundary laid hose with one of their engines and attached to a hydrant at the Boundary County airport. The experience was valuable as the assembled firefighters discussed the best possible arrangements for ground operation set-up.

A hand-crank valve between the firehose and aircraft supply line keeps the system from suffering sudden back pressure.

In the case of a large fire, a ground support crew would also mobilize from the CDC, said Newton.

The air tanker comes from the dispatch loaded with the red fire retardant many are familiar with and a ground crew would have a supply of the retardant concentrate, Newton told firefighters.

The training began with crash rescue protocol, and the assembled trainees were shown how to open the pilot’s door hatch, unbuckle the safety harness and where the fuel shutoff was located.

“There’s no ejection seat,” Willey responded when the question came up, “I get to ride it in.”

The plane comes equipped with redundant GPS systems, including synthetic vision for flying through low-visibility smoke-filled skies. Willey said he has never had to put a plane down while fighting fire, though he did once while cropdusting.

The plane’s tank fills quickly with 200 gallon per minute flow at maximum pressure. Hand signals were used to communicate between the pilot and support crew. Shutting off the valves in the right order was very important, Newton told trainees.

“If you’re wet, you’re wrong,” he told them.

A collapsible vinyl water tank with a metal frame was on hand for demonstration.

In remote locations, water tenders would make trips to fill the tank and a small pump would be used to fill the aircraft from the tank.

Generally, the air tanker would take a load of 600 to 700 gallons rather than the full load, to compensate for full fuel loads and higher elevations. The pilot can select a rate of flow, from about a 100 square foot coverage over half a mile to a full salvo dump, ejecting the entire load in approximately a second and a half, Willey said. A constant flow dump gate compensates for G-forces and speed and allows a pilot to fine-tune precise dumps.

Willey demonstrated a variety of dump speeds for the assembled trainees along the southern edge of the Boundary County airport. With three fill-ups, trainees were able to assist in each of the different ground crew roles.

With the fire season in full swing, CDC crews are staying busy fighting fires throughout the Northwest.

After assisting on the eastern Washington fires, crews are currently busy fighting the Upper Mica Complex, a series of three lightning strike fires in the St. Maries area.

Local crews have already been able to use their training, filling planes at the Boundary County Airport this week for fires on land in the Panhandle National Forest. The Big Mack fire has been burning heavy duff in approximately half an acre of old growth timber in the Myrtle Creek drainage, according to the Bonners Ferry Ranger District. Lightening strikes during recent storms started the fire. Fighting it is a high priority due to the importance of the drainage, which supplies water for the city of Bonners Ferry.