Marine copters fighting wildfires

[Bob Hudson]

Big brush fires have been burning all around us for the past few days, about 5 miles or so away, as the crow flies.

 

By late today the lines had moved further away so we ventured out to see what we could of the burned areas. Enroute we saw helicopters with dangling buckets heading toward Lake San Marcos, a private lake in a mostly senior citizens development. They were Marine Corps helicopters from Camp Pendleton: within the the last couple of years some Marine pilots and crews have been given special training to qualify them to do water drops. Some of them today worked a fire on Pendleton itself, while several worked the big San Marcos fire that has burned wildly in a steep range of coastal foothills.

 

The water loading process got to be wild at times as the prop wash sprayed us with lake water, which was kind of nice in today's 100-degree heat: sort of a USMC swamp cooler:

 

[Grant S.]

My wife, cats and myself survived the two fires ten years or so ago. At one point a wall of flame was within about half a mile of our development in Scripps Ranch. Last time there was a lot of grumbling about the fire depts not actually fighting the fires. Are the doing a better job this time? Is the media doing a better job getting information out? Good luck to you and all my old San Diego friends.

[Brig]

Is the media doing a better job getting information out?

Not in decades

[Brig]

These things lift tactical vehicles...you're think they'd have bigger containers of water

[Bob Hudson]

My wife, cats and myself survived the two fires ten years or so ago. At one point a wall of flame was within about half a mile of our development in Scripps Ranch. Last time there was a lot of grumbling about the fire depts not actually fighting the fires. Are the doing a better job this time? Is the media doing a better job getting information out? Good luck to you and all my old San Diego friends.

 

My sister lived in Scripps Ranch then too.

 

They've made lots of changes, especially in evacuation notices and getting air assets to the fire early on. At one point we had something like six major fires going at once here in San Diego County (arson suspected) so fire departments from 200 miles away came in to help.

 

Those Marine helicopters make a big difference, although they weren't in on the fight in the first day or so. If they could muster that fleet for the first day of a major fire it would be a game changer as their sheer numbers and payload capacity far exceeds the traditional of fire department and law enforcement aircraft used for water drops. Since the use of military copters is relatively new, I'm sure their usage will continue to evolve.

 

Notice the pink markings they put on the choppers for visibility during fire duty. It's a busy airspace. In my video you are seeing the action amost in real time: one after another the helicopters flew in, picked up water, circled back to the fire lines, and back to the water in an almost continuous loop.

 

The people gathered by the lake's edge were cheering them and giving lots of thumbs ups! Tha lake community had been evacuated the day before and had the winds no changed the water drops would have been done on their neighborhood, instead of one on the other side of the foothills shown on the right side of the video. On the left side you can the big brown cloud of smoke from the fire(s) at Camp Pendleton.

[Bob Hudson]

These things lift tactical vehicles...you're think they'd have bigger containers of water

 

The CH-53 is lifting about 16,000 pounds of water (2,000 gallons) - the MH-60 about 3,400 lbs - the CH-46 about 1,800 lbs.

 

With 100-degree plus heat and very low humidity I would imagine their lift is less-than-optimum so they may be ultra conservative on the payloads. The CH-53E is carrying about half of its rated external slung load and even the largest "Bambi Bucket" weighs only about 21,000 lbs when full, while the Super Stallion can sling 36,000 pounds.

[Brig]

Welllllll...those buckets must be bigger than they first appear.....

[Bob Hudson]

This photo was taken this morning (May 16) from the doorway of the place where I have a permanent indoor flea market booth. It's from the Las Pulgas fire on Camp Pendleton.

 

[hink441]

 

Notice the pink markings they put on the choppers for visibility during fire duty. It's a busy airspace. In my video you are seeing the action amost in real time: one after another the helicopters flew in, picked up water, circled back to the fire lines, and back to the water in an almost continuous loop.

Great video!! One question. Did the CH-53E and the H-46 also have the hi-viz markings also? I could not see any on those Helos. Looks like the H-60s might be the Station SAR Helos.

 

Chris

[Bob Hudson]

Great video!! One question. Did the CH-53E and the H-46 also have the hi-viz markings also? I could not see any on those Helos. Looks like the H-60s might be the Station SAR Helos.

 

Chris

 

Turns out the marked ones are Navy.

[Spathologist]

Welllllll...those buckets must be bigger than they first appear.....

That aircraft is bigger than you think. And water is a very dense cargo.

[Brig]

That aircraft is bigger than you think. And water is a very dense cargo.

I'm familiar with the size of the aircraft, been in a few myself. The buckets just seem alarmingly tiny in the photo, like half-dumpster size. Seems in the grand scheme of things it would have minimal effect. But very true on density

 

How effective are these types of procedures to fight fires?

[TLeo]

I had some correspondence with Mike Manifor from the forum yesterday about another matter. Seems he happens to be involved with the efforts. He sent me this photo---looks like it is pretty darn close!

 

 

.

 

 

[normaninvasion]

Are wildfires a common occurrence out there? Seems in the last 10 yrs I hear about wildfires every year in Calf. We have hurricanes here to put up with.

[Brig]

Are wildfires a common occurrence out there? Seems in the last 10 yrs I hear about wildfires every year in Calf. We have hurricanes here to put up with.

I get to deal with both!

 

It's gotten to the point that in the dry months, we strip the tracers out of the machine gun links to reduce fire risk...a real PITA when your ratio is 1:4 and you have nearly 50K rounds to expend

[normaninvasion]

Is this becoming a big problem on range, Brig?

[Bob Hudson]

Camp Pendleton has frequent fires on its ranges but this week's 100 degree temps, 10 percent humidity and winds blowing at 25 mph or more causes fires to grow far beyond what they otherwise would do.

 

Southern California is one of few areas of the world with this Mediterranean climate that has low annual rainfall and dry summers, dense and dry native vegetation (the areas are southern and southwestern Australia, central Chile, coastal California, the Western Cape of South Africa and around the Mediterranean Basin). At certain times the temps and humdity go haywire: the average summer high in San Diego is about 75, but this week the days have been around 100 (with nights at 65).

[Brig]

Is this becoming a big problem on range, Brig?

Depends on the weather. On average we light the range on fire once or twice each range week...usually during the night shoot when our lume rounds fall too rapidly. Last week it seems every time we popped a smoke something was lighting up. Often times if it's a non-explosive SDZ we'll run in and stomp it out or extinguish it with water jugs, but if it lands in an area rated for explosives, we can't do that because of risk of UXO