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Helicopters Help Fight Fires In LA County, But Water Availability Is An Issue
A firefighting helicopter performs a water drop as firefighters work below during the Martindale Fire in the Angeles National Forest on Sept. 28, 2020 near Santa Clarita.
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Mario Tama
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Southern California’s steep terrain can make it especially tough for firefighters on the ground to reach remote spots with hoses and hand tools, which is why L.A. County Fire relies heavily on helicopters, including the five Black Hawks currently in operation.
“If we didn’t have the aircrafts, we wouldn’t be able to catch the fires we do,” said assistant chief Pat Sprengel, former head of air operations for the department. “It buys us time to get crews and hose lines up into place to actually put the fire out. They’ll knock down the head of the fire and stop it before it gets to larger structures.”
The Black Hawks take about 45 seconds to suck up roughly 1,000 gallons of water before being able to fly off and dump it on some burning brush. But there’s a fairly sizable problem when it comes to using helicopters in remote areas: water availability.
While they can use their snorkels to pull water from reservoirs, lakes and swimming pools, fires often break out in locations without any easily available local water source to draw from. It's a common scenario in parched places like Santa Clarita, and that adds to the amount of time in between dumps.
A firefighting helicopter sucks up water from a temporary bladder on the Castaways Fire on October 1, 2005 in Burbank.
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David McNew
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To solve this issue, L.A. County Fire has been deploying refillable water tanks to remote areas when a fire breaks out. And today they announced the purchase of another 7,000-gallon tank that’ll be stationed in Rancho Palos Verdes.
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The container will fill with water which can be drawn on by helicopters. Ventura County Fire uses the HeloPod from the company Pump Pod USA, similar to L.A. County Fire.
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Pump Pod USA
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They’re essentially 40-yard dumpsters with extendable hoses that can draw water from sources like fire hydrants. A helicopter can then come along and suck directly from the mini reservoirs.
At least eight are now available for use by the departments and have been used on large fires, including the Woolsey and Tick fires.
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