Mathews mill/musick farm road AA501 is overhead. Plenty of dead grass to burn still around here and a long haul into that area.
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Got tanker 12 doing laps…now coming in for a drop.
AA said 10 acres.
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Tankers 76&78 coming… really, Not 1 helicopter or helitanker available!?
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Still nothing on WatchDuty
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Nothing on Twitter other than a post by me. AA released back to Fresno. It wasn’t much of a smoker.
It was just beyond the middle ridge inside the big giant burn scar.
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Was told contained at 5 acres
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CF doesn’t have much of a rotor footprint in that area, unless they still have some EU/CWN available. I think the fact that Columbia and Bear Valley are the closest CF ships is terrible. Agency owned and operated are always going to be the most reliable for response and the SRA through MMU/FKU/TUU/ Eastern Sierra (BDU) more than justifies at least one perm base.
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Is 408 a Gray Book funded resource
Wasn’t to my last info. Just billable hours for state or fed DPA.
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KRN gets a good chunk from the state and I’m sure a good portion goes toward a aviation. But like any contract county, that contract is for IA within the county on state lands. Sure on staffing patterns extra equipment can be staffed to bolster local response and on occasion state mission regional response, which the SP would also cover backfill.
However it would be completely unfair for the state to routinely use those resources for out of county assignments. If we routinely used KRN helicopters out of county, that would negatively impact KRN response to fires and rescues.
That area has a big gap for copters, it’s time the state put a state base there.
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At least put one of the reserve ships at KFAT.
Fire was on the SNF with FKU assisting. Just off the end of Jose Basin Rd under the power lines
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The reserve ships are just that reserve due to the increased maintenance requirements of the S-70I with decreased time intervals.
The State is having the same hiring challenges that every other agency in California and America is having. Trying to expand a the Helicopter program with agency owned ships would only compound an already difficult problem…
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KFAT is becoming a Tanker Base, a C130 will be there eventually. CWN ships are put there and at Millerton station, and I have seen one at Sanger before as well.
The pad at Millerton station isn’t used anymore, calfire has an agreement with State Parks and utilizes the large parking lot next to the now for contract helicopter operations
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Good to know, I havent talked with the rotor heads in a while so Im out of the loop.
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I think one reason they opted to go to the old dam lot besides the capacity for a heavy helicopter was adjacent power lines by the pad at Millerton station.
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