“When you fight fires, it feels like you have a purpose,” said Shannon Glenn about why he got into piloting aircraft like the Black Hawk helicopter.
While hand-crews fight the fire on the ground, there is an entire team of pilots, maintenance crews and interface crews supporting and evaluating from above. The Clearwater Fire, located 11 miles west of Wapiti, was 62% contained as of August 14.
“Our job is support,” pilot Liz Seymour said Monday.
Seymour and Glenn are two of the rotating pilots assigned to the Clearwater Fire. In an aircraft as large as a Black Hawk, two pilots are required.
Glenn operates as the pilot in command. His job is to fly the Black Hawk and perform the dips required to collect and disperse water onto the fire.
As second in command, Seymour watches the sky while Glenn collects the water and communicates with their ground contact and other aircraft in the area.
The Black Hawk has been collecting water from the Shoshone River. Using a bucket suspended between 160-170 feet below the helicopter, the pilots are able to collect as much as 800 gallons of water per bucket. The bucket is equipped with a pump system that allows them to collect water from shallower sources.
To prepare for a day on the fire, pilots are briefed by their team on such factors as weather conditions, wind speed and direction, dip sites and hazards. This information is collected from the U.S. Fire Administration and recon aircraft such as an A-Star Helicopter.
Smaller helicopters like an A-Star are lighter aircraft that are commonly used to transport personnel above a fire for observations. They also can be used as a first line of defense to get to smaller fires or ones that just started. They’re also used to get smoke jumpers in to fight fires.
Pilot Spencer Smucker is one of the pilots who has been flying the A-Star for the Clearwater Fire. He enjoys the challenge of piloting for fires and said the most exciting part of his job is when he gets to do bucket work.
“Firefighting was the goal,” Smucker said.
Glenn and Seymour did not always know they were going to fight fires.
“I thought I was going to be a teacher,” Seymour said. Now, she has 20 years of experience under her belt fighting fires.
“I’m still baffled,” Glenn said about his career choice.
The common denominator among all three pilots was their attraction to the challenge of their job, the most exciting and rewarding part of what they get to do.
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