California is preparing for a very long night, Tanker 910, Tanker 911 and Tanker 914 have assembled at McCarren Fire base as Cali begins to burn. Tanker 944 is also back from South America on Call When Needed Call.
Along with 10 Tanker Air Carrier and The Global Supertanker Neptune has deployed five more of their Tanker 01, Tanker 02, Tanker 10, Tanker 12, Tanker 15 CalFire also has their own S2Ts on stand by. Coulson has Tanker 134, a C-130 and Tanker 137, a Boeing 737-300. Calfire helicopters also are on stand by to support fires. Right now Night Qualified aircrews are attacking as we speak.
I’ll update this threat through out the night
This isn’t about FR24 findings, this is an update on CalFire night operations that are currently taking place and a thread share information on machines that are deployed.
Nope, CalFire Aviation is a real world organization which is why this is in Real World Aviation, along with all the other aircraft on USFS Call When Needed Contracts.
Best of luck to them. Really depends on the size of that fire. The fire must be massive to do night operations. 4 DC-10’s can do a great job fighting the fire. 👍
I only know the European car brand and that isn’t what you mean here, could you please explain what it is to the non-native speaker (me)? Thanks for the interesting thread!
Sure! SEATs are Single Engine Air Tankers. Typically Air Tractors! Colorado is one of the very first operations in the US to be qualified to fight fires with Night Vision Goggles
Thank you! That makes far more sense than the small lower- to medium class cars which I was thinking about.
That’s a great use of technology and very impressive as I would imagine the contrast between the bright fires and the dark surrounding could make actually seeing the surroundings very though.
Didn’t think about that before, but without such Googles you can’t fight fires at night via air, right?
As a former Wildland firefighter, I really don’t feel great about nigh ops with aviation. I don’t know if the risk is worth the rewards. When I took IC (Incident commander, lower level) classes I was taught to always consider the safety of the air resource before ordering.
It’s one thing that fires are raging about 40 miles from me, and another that the risk that seemed to be out still made a huge fire. Well, that’s the Golden State.
