EdFred
Taxi to Parking
Only GA can prevent forest fires.
Perhaps congress needs to rethink a few things. Of course, asking them to think in the first place is a chore in and of itself, but I digress. I head up to 6Y9 this weekend, and with the visibility pushing 50+ miles Friday afternoon I could see smoke waaaaaay out on the horizon. As I get closer to Sidnaw I see that there is a fire about 4-5 miles south of town. I circle it, but not very low, thinking someone is just burning a brush pile out at a camp. No. Not the case. The local fire chief found out I saw the fire and came over to ask me about it. They could see the smoke in one of the small valleys but could not find the fire itself. When I told him where it was, he was surprised. So I told him that I would show him exactly where it was. So we hopped into the plane, and headed out south of town, and circled about 500' above the fire - which was NOT at someone's camp. Lightning strike had started a fire which was probably only about 1/2 an acre at the time, but with the location it could have been hundreds of acres before they found it on foot/ATV/ground vehicle.
I got him a good pinpoint on where it was, and found a small trail from the air, figured out right were he needed to get off the trail, and he took 3 or 4 other guys out to put it out.
I don't see the airlines finding any fires like that, do you?
And how much does a fire fighting operation in a remote area cost these days ?
Perhaps congress needs to rethink a few things. Of course, asking them to think in the first place is a chore in and of itself, but I digress. I head up to 6Y9 this weekend, and with the visibility pushing 50+ miles Friday afternoon I could see smoke waaaaaay out on the horizon. As I get closer to Sidnaw I see that there is a fire about 4-5 miles south of town. I circle it, but not very low, thinking someone is just burning a brush pile out at a camp. No. Not the case. The local fire chief found out I saw the fire and came over to ask me about it. They could see the smoke in one of the small valleys but could not find the fire itself. When I told him where it was, he was surprised. So I told him that I would show him exactly where it was. So we hopped into the plane, and headed out south of town, and circled about 500' above the fire - which was NOT at someone's camp. Lightning strike had started a fire which was probably only about 1/2 an acre at the time, but with the location it could have been hundreds of acres before they found it on foot/ATV/ground vehicle.
I got him a good pinpoint on where it was, and found a small trail from the air, figured out right were he needed to get off the trail, and he took 3 or 4 other guys out to put it out.
I don't see the airlines finding any fires like that, do you?
And how much does a fire fighting operation in a remote area cost these days ?
