That is awesome!
On aerial firefighting...I've seen lots of openings on sites like justhelicopters.com and such for it, but they all have requirements such as "longline experience" or "USFS carded." Is this the typical aviation chicken-and-egg situation, i.e. experience is a requirement to get hired, but one can't get experience unless one is already hired?
I've flown hundreds of externals in the military, but they are all 15' pendant with a ground crew, not longline. Could I use that as experience to get me into such work?