LA Fires
 

I’ve done bucketing and snorkeling, and a little NVG, but not both at the same time. My sense was you lost a lot of the peripheral you need for confined vertical reference with at least the older NVG. Anybody there that can update me on night firefighting?
And where are you finding your water there?

Additionally, thoughts and prayers for the teams that are there working around the clock. Keep safe Ladies and Gentlemen.

Looks like they're getting water from the various reservoirs. Currently Stone Canyon Reservoir. Yesterday they were hitting the Encino Reservoir. I've also seen them going out to the ocean.
https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=a4f98b

I'm looking forward to hearing more about these questions. I assume the flaring must be an issue too?

You reckon there is a shortage of ground surface lighting?

Lots of smoke about for sure and dark bits outside where the actual fire is burning....and around Los Angeles some lumpy bits to run into.

One thing for sure the Boys and Girls out there flying at night fighting the fires are sure earning their money and our respect.

I did it in the day time and felt grossly underpaid and disrespected.

I've done it for several years and as long as the company SOPs and crew training are adapted to nvg fire fighting, it can be done safely.

The largest detriment of nvg flying is reduced depth perception, reduced sense of rate of closure, and reduced ability to judge height above terrain. So crew training has to address these areas of higher risk. We use additional CRM callouts that include VSI and radalt along with standard cockpit calls to help paint a mental model of surrounding terrain and position of aircraft in relation thereof. At night we increase our standard drop height a bit to allow for a higher margin of safety. We don't do vertical reference on goggles so our procedures in the water source as well as on the drop over the fire had to be adapted to account for not utilizing VR. The drops were easy to adapt to - fly it like an airtanker and keep your speed around 60 KIAS and adjust the start of the drop due to a different sight picture. In the water source it is constant CRM and use of searchlights to help hold position.

The fire puts out a lot of light and helps illuminate the surrounding terrain so that we use unaided sighting techniques as much as reliance on goggles.

I was also told that in some case dropping water under ngv is easier than in day time as with ngv you can see through the fire smokes.

I take you mean NVG's instead of NGV's, if so can you please point me to where it says that you can see through fire smoke with them?
Thermal cameras might be able to see through smoke but never heard of NVG being able to do that.

My apologies, it is not NVG but thermal cameras. I was talking with a pilot who show me some impressive thermal cam video. I have been impressed by its level of detail.

The thermal cameras are on the Bell 429's that are on contract with Cal-Fire as "Helco" platforms. Basically they fly above and direct the air assets. Coulson also has an S-76 that they use as a "lead Helicopter" to direct their Chinooks on drops. They also have thermal imaging cameras linked to mapping systems. Both these aircraft do the same as the old USFS Cobras that were retired a couple years back.

Gordy, I think you're talking about the 407 HLCO machines. The 429s don't have any of that equipment installed. I had the pleasure of flying one of the HLCO 407s over the summer. We used the thermal imaging (IR) capabilities mostly towards the end of a fire to look for hot spots. Never to look through the smoke. The exclusive use HLCO 407s were used for the first time this season, very capable asset that is still being improved.

Nope, Cal-Fire has two of them on contract, one operated by Capitol Helicopters, I gave one of their pilots his 135 ride earlier this year. It is based at McClellan Field, (main aviation base of Cal-Fire). He used to work for me at Redding Air Service on our fire contracts before moving to Capitol.

Also one of the Coulson S-76 pilots used to work for me flying our S-76's before leaving to go work for them.

See this articel here...scroll down almost to the end:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources...a-d79c0ff994c3

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....94aa07dcc1.jpg

For anyone interested I came across this recent Podcast Interview with Mike Sagely on the LA Fires. Very interesting!

I was on fires with both the Capitol and PJ 429s. They use NVGs for night HLCO missions but do not have thermal imaging systems. Those cameras are only installed on the two Helicopter Express 407s that are being used by the USFS.
We also rarely hover over the fire during HLCO missions as the article states, we fly orbits to extend our time on scene.

@verticalspin is correct. I worked alongside one of the Capitol 429s for several months at night this past season and they don't have cameras. The BBC article is written by someone who's never been near a fire and full of inaccuracies.
NVGs help in seeing through smoke up to a certain point. Just like shallow fog, they can get you in trouble and will slowly shut down the thicker the smoke gets. This is why adopting a scanning technique that includes looking under the goggles will help identify areas of heavy smoke.

I stand corrected on the camera systems. I do however know what HLCO does---flew my first fire in 1991.....

I never said you didn't, Gordy. Just pointing out some flaws of a poorly written/researched article. Their little graphic with the altitude in meters is amusing too. I'm sure the author was being told altitudes in feet and forgot to convert it. Last time I checked the Palisades weren't anywhere close to 2000m. Anything above 10k feet for more than 30 min the USFS requires oxygen for HLCO operations, I'm sure CalFire would have similar restrictions.

I get it.... Yeah the article is poorly written now that I dissect it.... Never understood why they convert to Meters when aviation is still in feet---even in Europe.

Night Attack
Just for context
These videos from 2 years ago does speak a bit of night Helicopter Fire Attack.
I think there was a more detailed video at the time from Coulson with much better descriptions of how it is all supposed to work but I can’t locate it on YouTube as entering a search of night helicopter fire fighting leads to endless reports on the present ongoing emergency.

Not sure how current this is but some good filming.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DEoxW...R1cXo2MzQ1bA==