Two C-130s boost firefighting efforts
BOISE – Dropping a 3,000-gallon load of fire retardant on a Western wildfire is a lot like flying into Baghdad International Airport, Lt. Col. Vince “Vinny” Cocca says.
“We get in there fast, we get out of there fast,” said Cocca, a pilot in the California Air National Guard, on the similarities of dodging insurgent attacks and extinguishing forest fires.
The Iraq war veteran is part of a two-plane team from California that’s flying specially equipped C-130 “Hercules” cargo aircraft in Idaho for the next 30 days or so to help the National Interagency Fire Center combat blazes that may accompany a hot and dry weather pattern this week for the region stretching from Montana to Northern California.
The National Weather Service has issued a “red flag” warning for the region, meaning a combination of strong winds, low humidity and high temperatures could lead to explosive wildfire growth. Fire officials in Boise wanted extra aircraft just in case.
“Initial attack is our No. 1 priority, when we have such elevated conditions,” Karyn Wood, the fire center’s operations director, said Monday. “Geographically, Boise is at the center of the storm track.”
Already, there are 10 fires of at least 100 acres each burning in Idaho, with seven in Montana and three in Oregon, including the 84-square-mile Foster Gulch fire near the Snake River’s Hells Canyon.
From the Boise airport, the C-130s, which work with smaller tankers, helicopters and thousands of firefighters on the ground, can quickly reach fires in eastern Oregon, northern Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Eastern Washington and northern Utah. Rose Davis, a spokeswoman at the Boise fire center that coordinates the deployment of 15,000 firefighters nationwide, said “hotshot” crews working blazes are already stretched thin.
Federal fire managers in Idaho say the C-130 teams will help keep new fires small so they don’t further sap resources.
“Since the planes are flying for initial attack, a lot of the fires they’ll see won’t show up on our situation report,” Davis said.
The 44-year-old C-130s have a pilot, co-pilot, navigator and three other crew members. The four-engine turboprop planes are outfitted with slide-in retardant tanks that can drop a half-mile-long, 30-foot-wide swath of chemicals that can form a virtually impenetrable fire line.
Two observers sit at the rear of the planes, peering through an open cargo bay door. They see trees, rocks, smoke and flames – and the sudden spray of red ejected from the tanks as the aircraft cruises at a top speed of about 325 mph.
Monday at noon, Cocca took off from the Boise airport and headed east to a fire near Craters of the Moon National Monument, northeast of Twin Falls. To him, the southern Idaho desert’s volcanic landscape looks remarkably like a mission to Baghdad.
“Sometimes, you look at the terrain, you almost think you’re in Iraq,” said Cocca, who normally flies out of the Channel Islands Air National Guard Station, located in Port Hueneme, about 60 miles north of Los Angeles.