Wildfire Air Patrol
Talk to anyone who has been in the business of firefighting, at any level, and he or she will tell you that the job "gets in your blood." Being involved in saving lives, property, and natural resources is definitely exciting and rewarding. A pilot of small aircraft can serve a very special role in the battle against wildfires. Here is the story of just one day in the cockpit of a Cessna 182 (four-passenger single-engine airplane) in the skies over western Montana.
Thunderstorms had rolled through western Montana the night before, and the day dawned warm, dry and windy. My fire observer and I knew that we were in for a bumpy, busy ride in our little airplane. Summertime flying in the mountains of Montana is always a contest between Mother Nature and an aircraft occupant's stomach strength. I pre-flighted the airplane, made sure the fuel was topped off to maximum capacity, checked the weather conditions with Flight Service, and we launched at about 11:00 a.m. on July 29, 1994, in the middle of an exceptionally busy fire season.
Our schedule that day called for beginning our patrol by climbing to the southwest, then circling the rim of the Missoula valley to the east and proceeding into the Blackfoot River area. As soon as we cleared the shoulder of Sheep Mountain, we saw dozens of "smokes," some small white plumes, others beginning to blossom into larger dark columns. We had to quickly choose the fire we thought needed the most immediate attention. The closest large fire seemed to be on Black Mountain. A radio call to the dispatcher back in Missoula confirmed our destination as the most critical at the moment.
Full throttle, high speed, and we were soon circling in the smoke and ash rising from the flanks of Black Mountain. The observer plotted the exact location on a topographical map, and called in the coordinates to the dispatcher. The dispatcher relayed information on which ground crew was assigned to the fire, and how to reach the "incident commander" (the guy in charge of the battle against this fire) on the correct FM radio frequency from our cockpit. We could see the dust plume rising behind the yellow forestry fire engine bouncing along the gravel road leading to Black Mountain. The incident commander told us he could see the smoke and would be there in about 10 minutes.
In the meantime, our job was to "size up" the fire, recording estimates of size of the fire, slope of the terrain, fire fuel available, wind, height of the flames, and road access for the engine. This particular fire was growing very rapidly, already about 15 acres in size, in steep terrain and heavy timber. The flame heights were approaching 100 feet above the tree tops, and "torching" was already occurring. (The drought-parched pine trees were literally exploding into balls of flame, spreading the fire to other trees around them.) We relayed the information to the ground crew, and the incident commander immediately radioed a request to the dispatcher for more engines and firefighters for the ground attack. He pushed his engine as fast as he could over the rough road leading to the fire.
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