At a glance, the numbers show a significant increase in wildland fire events over the previous year. According to year-to-date National Interagency Fire Center statistics as of Nov. 13, 2020, a total of 49,815 fires destroyed 8,750,197 acres. For the 2019 comparable period, 45,840 fires burned 5,418,234 acres. All indications are that dry conditions will persist, especially in the West, and fire seasons will get longer and more destructive as the fuel load — the vegetation that will dry out in the spring and summer — increases. Along with this, the trend toward residential development in the wildland urban interface (WUI) makes the fires that much more catastrophic — and more deadly.
The question then is: How well prepared are the helicopter and tanker operators to deal with this new normal? Fortunately, the industry is currently in a stabilized mode, and better positioned to meet the challenges of the predicted worsening fire seasons to come.
In that regard, the majority of the aerial firefighting industry has largely transitioned to more modern equipment. Vendors of aerial firefighting services, who have been operating large air tankers over the past five to six years, have settled upon their aircraft choice, and the tanking systems installed in those aircraft are better designed. Also, compared to legacy aircraft, the newer tankers offer faster airspeed, better and higher dispatch reliability, and increased retardant-carrying capacity. Parts availability is higher because the OEMs that manufactured the aircraft are still in business and continue to support them. In 2020, approximately 40 air tankers were under U.S. Forest Service (USFS) contract, about double the number a decade ago.
We are also seeing considerable change on the helicopter side, as operators move toward a new generation of equipment for aerial firefighting. For example, more Type 1 helicopters — defined by the USFS as those that can carry 10 or more passengers, have a certified internal gross weight over 14,001 pounds, and are able to carry up to 700 gallons of water — are entering the fleets. This is because a lot of military surplus Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawks and Boeing CH-47D Chinooks are becoming available to the civilian market at relatively cheap prices. Currently, there are 25 to 30 Type 1 rotorcraft in the aerial firefighting fleet, about double the number of five years ago. In fact, for the helicopter operators engaged in aerial firefighting,
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