Fire suppression planes
 

Speaking of needing rain... We have a wildfire near us. Yesterday I read from the sheriff dept website that they were deploying aircraft. We went out to see if we could watch them scoop water. I didn't think we'd be able to get to a good spot but we eventually did. These are some small "scooper" planes. Yesterday they had 4 of these small fixed wing and 6 helicopters. Today they're going to continue those and they're bringing in a couple bigger planes to drop retardant. Right now the wind direction is in our favor and looks to stay that way for at least the next 10 days so that's good news. Hopefully they'll have it under control by then.

https://youtu.be/wDCkVPTS5e4

https://youtube.com/shorts/RG6nIfrUD4o?feature=share

https://youtube.com/shorts/5cgWMLnuPeE?feature=share

Hopefully it works. I remember being under those planes as they dropped the water/retardant when I was a young man. Wildfire on that scale is quite a thing...

They beat the old WW2 bombers that were the fire bombers in the 1970s and 1980s.

Look up the Mars water bomber on Youtube, Huge planes, not sure how they stayed in the air LOL.
They fought a lot of fires during their time up here in Canada. But like all things their time has come to an end.
A little Politics involved.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_sCv86QYXw

This is the kind of thing you never want to need to have (the planes). But it's a great thing to have when you need it. Three years ago we had a big fire here. Burned 173,000 acres. There was so much smoke they couldn't use aircraft. All ground fighting. But, they stopped it.

This fire is only 100 acres right now and they have a lot of resources on it, plus the wind cooperating for now is all good. But, anything can happen...

I was up in the gorge last month when the fire across from Hood River was burning. Watching the planes swoop down into the Columbia River and scoop up water was pretty amazing

I see a couple of Air Tractors in the 2nd video. With the PT6, those are workhorses. Tons in service doing AG work. Thanks for posting!