So much goes into fighting wildfires from above. An hours-long flight path above the Cottonwood Fire on Tuesday seen on FlightAware proves just that as it circled the fire over and over.
He's in the plane that organizes a busy sky of tankers, lead planes, and helicopters flying above firefighters in the wilderness.
Vanderhoeven spent 20 years on the ground fighting these forest wildfires, using what he learned to orchestrate the skies above.During a wildfire, he sits in air attack at 2,500 feet with a bird's eye view. The DC-10 tankers with fire retardant fly at 1,500 feet and helicopters with water buckets fly at 500 feet., he had line crews and helicopters ushered out of the way as a lead plane flies in quickly to let the tanker know where to drop. Once it hits the mark, there it goes.At the air base at Mesa Gateway Airport, we saw the DC-10 return to go for another round. Another drop is being overseen by air attack.
"In the full scope of things, I don't think they realize there are 50 people at an air tanker base between the loading, parking pilots, the fuelers getting the fuel for the planes. All that goes into the one drop that happens for three minutes in the woods on the fire line," Vanderhoeven explained. Wildfire season keeps them busy, of course. Especially this season with several lightning-caused fires burning across the state.
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