Originally Posted by
Ascend Charlie
But what puzzled me is the complete reluctance to use salt water to fight the fires - the ocean was 100 metres away, and a huge lake 1 km away, but they tracked up to 5km to a fresh water supply in an industrial area, greatly increasing the time between drops.
Obviously, salt water is going to stay in the soil for a while and kill the vegetation, but wouldn't that be preferable to losing your house?
I’m not sure of the circumstances you’re referring to, but in my part of the world we use salt water regularly. The vegetation isn’t the limiting factor, it’s the equipment used - any machine with a belly tank won’t dip from salt water as the spray generated from the down wash while filling will cover the machine & be ingested by the engines, not a good result as your helicopter corrodes away. Using a longline we can use salt water without the risk of covering the machine in salt.