Aero Union P-3's grounded...while houses burn

[mustanglover]

It's too bad that so many people are out of there homes. 130,000 acres is not a huge fire in the scheme of things. I worked on one when I was a young nipper of 17 in Northern Ontario, Canada that was 1,384,000 acres. I remember flying across the burned out part sitting with my legs dangling out of a helicopter at 6000 ft in awe of how much forest had burned. Next year I was up there you almost could not tell as everything had already started to grow back in.

They changed the method for dealing with forest fires back in the mid to late 80s in Canada from complete prevention to only preventing housing and villages from getting destroyed. I remember being in the bush once and was stunned on how dense it was but there was a lot of burnable debris packed in there. Apparently the occasional burns "clean house" naturally.

Ummm, in Texas (as of today) there are over 1.4 million acres of land either having been already burned or are on fire.

Much more than 130K acres.

[mustanglover]

It's too bad that so many people are out of there homes. 130,000 acres is not a huge fire in the scheme of things. I worked on one when I was a young nipper of 17 in Northern Ontario, Canada that was 1,384,000 acres. I remember flying across the burned out part sitting with my legs dangling out of a helicopter at 6000 ft in awe of how much forest had burned. Next year I was up there you almost could not tell as everything had already started to grow back in.

They changed the method for dealing with forest fires back in the mid to late 80s in Canada from complete prevention to only preventing housing and villages from getting destroyed. I remember being in the bush once and was stunned on how dense it was but there was a lot of burnable debris packed in there. Apparently the occasional burns "clean house" naturally.

Ummm, in Texas (as of today) there are over 1.4 million acres of land either having been already burned or are on fire.

Much more than 130K acres.

Current wildfire status - April 20, 2011 - 9:33 a.m.

Recent response:

· Yesterday (Tuesday, April 19), Texas Forest Service responded to 10 new fires burning 2,184 acres.

· Since Jan. 1, TFS has responded to 810 fires that have burned 1.4 million acres. More than 5,570 structures have been saved; 370 structures have been lost this year.

· The McPherson Fire in Sutton County has been contained at 2,300 acres.

· The state now has four Incident Management Teams engaged in managing wildfire response; the Lone Star State IMT (Merkel), the Southern Area Blue Team (Midland), the Southern Area Red Team (Mineral Wells) and the Florida Red Team (Lufkin).

· TFS has every heavy airtanker that is available nationally committed to Texas wildfires.

· 202 of the 254 Texas counties are reporting burn bans.

[Lynn Allen]

They had a large storm roll through the Possum Kingdom area tonight so maybe that will help...

[Wilson]

Local California Air National Guard deployed to fight Texas fires
By Mike Harris

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Local California Air National Guard members and retardant-dropping aircraft have joined the fight in Texas against a massive series of wildfires that have burned 1.5 million acres and destroyed nearly 400 structures.

The 146th Airlift Wing from the Channel Islands Air National Guard Station near Point Mugu deployed 35 guardsmen and women and three C-130J Hercules aircraft Sunday to Texas. On Wednesday, another 13 guard members were sent to Texas to relieve an equal number of their colleagues.

Two of the aircraft are equipped with state-of-the-art Modular Airborne Fire Fighting Systems, which can discharge 3,000 gallons of water or fire retardant in less than five seconds, covering an area one-quarter of a mile long by 60 feet wide. Once the load is discharged, it can be refilled in less than 12 minutes. The third C-130J Hercules aircraft was deployed in a support capacity.

"Our wing received notification Saturday afternoon that we would be deploying to Texas, and less than 29 hours later we were actually performing our first drop of retardant," Lt. Col. Kurt Holden said in a prepared statement. "The members of this wing are truly dedicated to this mission, and worked throughout the night loading the equipment onto the aircraft to ensure an on-time departure."

Shortly after departing, the aircraft were diverted to Laughlin Air Force Base near Del Rio, Texas, where the guardsmen loaded retardant, then headed directly to one of the blazes — the Wildcat Fire — located about 10 miles north of San Angelo.

Since then, the 146th aircraft have performed at least 16 drops, releasing 48,000 gallons of retardant on the Wildcat and P.K. West fires. The 146th conducts annual aerial firefighting training and first used the modular firefighting system on a blaze in Riverside County in July.

Two other Hercules aircraft equipped with the system have also been deployed to Texas, one each from the Wyoming National Guard's 153rd Airlift Wing and North Carolina's 145th Airlift Wing.

The Texas Forest Service, which is leading the firefighting efforts, welcomed the help.

"We are very happy to have the C130 MAFFS helping us to stop the spread of these wildfires," said service spokeswoman Nicole Hawk. "We are now battling with all the resources we can get our hands on, and these MAFFS units have been a crucial addition to our fight."

Since Jan. 1, the service has responded to more than 800 fires that have burned 1.4 million acres, destroyed 370 structures and forced evacuations. The fires are being fueled by severe drought conditions, scorching temperatures and high winds.

As of Wednesday, there were 22 major uncontained fires, the service said.

The 146th's deployment will last as long as they are needed, said its spokeswoman, Maj. Kimberly Holman.

[mustanglover]

Also saw that the Evergreen 747 is based in San Antonio but so far is not contracted to fight any fires. However, they have been flying into Mexico to fire those fires.

[Ztex]

The 747 is still flying to Mexico to fight fires there.

[CAPFlyer]

From the Hawaii Mars thread, it looks like the Mexico support element right now is the Mars, Tanker 979 (Evergreen) and 2 MAFFS (Colorado ANG/Peterson AFB from what I saw) C-130's.

I've still not heard where Area Command is, but I'm guessing it's at the State EOC under the capital in Austin. They have 5 Incident Command Posts up right now, 4 in Texas and 1 in Mexico. I've not found any information on what the command structure is for the Mexico ICP, but I've found reports that they're using the same Incident Command System that we use here in the states, so it makes fighting these fires much easier because everyone's on the same page on how things go and can move personnel and equipment between command posts on a moment's notice, no matter where they actually are.

[Ztex]

I have hear that Area Command may have been moved to Mineral Wells as of yesterday.

Here's the current resources map from the TFS

http://tfsfrp.tamu.edu/wildfires/resources.pdf

[CAPFlyer]

Doesn't really say from the thing. It says that Midland and Mineral Wells both have Type 1 IMT's on scene, but it says the Type II team in Austin is the SOC (State Operations Center), so that would still suggest that SOC is still acting as Area Command.

[Dewayne Doud]

AUC P-3's are flying again.


http://www.examiner.com/wildfire-in-national/texas-fires-slowed-by-humidity-disagreement-about-p-3-air-tankers-resolved

[Ztex]

Got this info today....



Here is a list of the tankers in Texas. This info was current as of 0100Hrs (Mountain Time). Info is direct from AFF.....

S.E.A.T.'s:
#'s 409, 410 ,424, 441, 446, 486, 821, 820, 828, 830, 871, 885, 891, 892, 894, 895, 896 & 897

P2V's:
#'s 06, 10, 11, 45 & 55

P3's:
#'s 00, 22 & 25 (should be airborne today or tomorrow according to reports)

DC-10:
#910 (did not fly 4-20)

747:
#979 (has been parked for the last several days)

Cessna Citation 550, N144Z, IR Mapping platform

[Ztex]

I don't know if this link will work for everyone...

Nice piece of video put together by a local TV news Helicopter crew.

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1698430860191

[RyanShort1]

I'm almost dead sure I saw a P-3 fly into KSAT today. Between the humidity and the smoke, the visibility ALL over south central Texas is pretty low - 5-7 miles is what I've been seeing average. It's pretty incredible.

Ryan

[Ztex]

If your curious here's a list of helos working in Texas as well...

N611CK - Croman SH-3
N612CK - Croman SH-3
N561SC - Sky Cats Puma Corp. S-61A
N312KA - Superior K-1200 (KMAX)
HT-737 - Erickson S-64
HT-742 - Erickson S-64
N1043T - Croman S-61A
N699RH - Ranier Heli International K-1200 (KMAX)
HT-718 - Helicopter Transport Service S-64

[StangStung]

Great info. I'm headed out to Mineral Wells this weekend. My folks live pretty close to the airport and I always drop by and see what I can find as there's general something interesting. This time I'm sure it'll be even more interesting than usual.