New Fire Hawk helicopter arrives at Boggs Mountain Helitack Base
- Elizabeth Larson
- Posted On
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Cal Fire’s Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit said a new firefighting helicopter has arrived at the Boggs Mountain Helitack Base.
The new Sikorsky S70i Fire Hawk helicopter will be known as Copter 104.
It will replace the existing Copter 104, a Vietnam-era in-service UH-1H Super Huey that has been in service with Cal Fire since 1990. At that time, it was among a fleet upgrade to replace UH-1F helicopters Cal Fire had purchased from the Air Force in 1981.
While the UH-1H helicopter has been an asset to the unit and to the state for many years, Cal Fire’s Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit reported that it’s excited to have the new state of the art S70i helicopter available to serve and safeguard people and protect the property and resources of California.
In 2018, Cal Fire received approval from the Governor’s Office to purchase 12 new Sikorsky S70i firefighting helicopters — with enhanced capabilities including flight safety, higher payloads and increased power margins — from United Rotorcraft to replace its aging fleet of 12 Super Huey helicopters.
Cal Fire spokeswoman Christine McMorrow said this year four Fire Hawks will be up and running statewide, including the one at Boggs Mountain.
She said the first Fire Hawk was delivered last year to the helitack at Vina, near Corning.
McMorrow said a decision hadn’t yet been made about what will be done with the older helicopters.
The primary mission for the Fire Hawks is responding to initial attack on wildfires and rescue Missions. Cal Fire said they also can transport internal cargo loads, and conduct reconnaissance, mapping, medical evacuations, crew transports and numerous other types of emergency work not related to fires.
Cal Fire said the Fire Hawks can deliver a helitack crew for ground firefighting operations and then quickly transition to water or foam dropping missions. The crew includes one pilot, two helitack captains, an operations supervisor and up to nine personnel.
The new helicopters can carry up to 1,000 gallons of water or foam, where the UH-1H Super Huey had the maximum capability of up to 324 gallons, Cal Fire reported.
Additionally, Cal Fire said the Fire Hawks are equipped with an external hoist for faster response to rescue missions. This specialized rescue technique requires Cal Fire personnel to undergo many hours of training to become skilled and proficient in the operations.
The Fire Hawks have a twin turbine engine with a cruise speed of 160 miles per hour, are night vision capable and have a 250-mile range.
The new helicopters are part of a larger effort by Cal Fire to strengthen its fleet to protect the state against the increasingly numerous — and larger — wildland fires.
State Sen. Mike McGuire, whose district includes Lake County, said Cal Fire has the largest air attack fleet in the world.
In addition to the Fire Hawks, McGuire said the state has struck a deal to purchase seven older C-130 cargo planes that the Coast Guard is phasing out. Cal Fire will outfit the C-130s to make them the largest air attack planes in the sky and will locate them strategically throughout California.
He said Cal Fire also has gotten new predictive software to help determine how fires move and estimate how many firefighters will be needed to stop them.
As for resources on the ground, in March Gov. Gavin Newsom used emergency fund authorization to approve nearly $81 million to hire 1,399 firefighters for Cal Fire.
McMorrow said that funding allowed Cal Fire to bring on seasonal firefighters earlier in the year in order to be ready to respond to early season wildland fires and do more prevention activities.
Those fire crews will be spread out throughout the state, she said.
Tyree Zander, a Cal Fire spokesman for the Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit, said the unit has 174 firefighters budgeted for each fire season.
This year, thanks to the additional funding from the governor, they will get 70 additional personnel, for a total of 244 for the 2021 fire season, Zander said.
Zander said four firefighter academies were scheduled for this year, beginning in April.
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