![]() ![]() Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg, whose district has been hit by seven major wildfires since 2015. The $288 million purchase came at an opportune time, said state Sen. With the arrival of the Hawks, the agency has the first nighttime capacity since the aviation program began with converted crop dusters deployed as air tankers in the 1950s. The Super Hueys could fly at night, but Cal Fire decided against using the 50-year-old single-engine copters for firefighting or rescues in darkness, Brown said. There’s scant margin for error with helicopters operating at 500 feet and dropping water at about 50 feet over rugged terrain with obstacles including power lines. The pilot’s green-tinted view of the ground lacks detail, and the goggles afford no peripheral vision. Forest Service firefighter, supervisor and aviation safety officer and joined Cal Fire in 2009 after a mandatory federal retirement. “Flying at night has its own set of hazards,” said Brown, who worked for 38 years as a U.S. Larry Groff of Windsor and another pilot, Lars Stratte of Redding, were killed when their Cal Fire air tankers collided over a fire near Hopland in 2001. No matter the advances in equipment, Cal Fire is averse to adding risks to an already hazardous operation. There’s so much training required for pilots and crews to handle the highly automated Hawks, along with establishing round-the-clock staffing, that nighttime firefighting operations are a year or two away, Brown said. The C-130s, larger and faster than Cal Fire’s 23 Grumman S-2T tankers, will augment the fleet of 54 aircraft, which the agency says is the world’s largest fire department-owned fleet. Schulz-Sonoma County Airport, Boggs Mountain in Lake County, Ukiah Municipal Airport and Howard Forest in Willits - is also acquiring, at no cost, seven former Coast Guard C-130 air tankers. The agency, with 23 aircraft bases statewide - including at the Charles M. “It’s an exciting time for Cal Fire,” said Dennis Brown, senior chief of aviation based at McClellan Airport in Sacramento. That’s 15 minutes faster and three times more water than the Vietnam War-era Super Huey copters that will be replaced over time by a modified version of the Sikorsky Black Hawk flown by U.S. ![]() It’s capable of reaching Lake Berryessa in 30 minutes, with eight firefighters aboard and 1,000 gallons of water in a tank on its belly. ![]() One of the Cal Fire Hawks, a sleek, twin-engine helicopter that cruises at 160 mph and costs $24 million, will be based in June at the Vina Helitack Base on Highway 99 north of Chico in Tehama County. SACRAMENTO - Facing wildfires of epic proportions, California’s firefighting agency is acquiring nearly $300 million worth of new weapons: a dozen high-powered helicopters equipped to drop water on flaming woodlands and fields in darkness, manned by pilots wearing night vision goggles. ![]()
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