Forest fires and airplanes
Although there have been some worries, the Yukon has been exceptionally lucky this summer – lots of hot, sunny days with few forest fires. Only Dawson has significant fires burning – lightning has, I believe, caused all of them this year. See the Yukon Wildland Fire Management site for information about the current situation. Many fires aren’t fought at all – if nothing of commercial value is threatened, fires are usually left alone.
The first photo shows a fire that was burning near Little Salmon lake in the central Yukon a couple of weeks ago.
Few forest fires are accessible by road, so aerial tankers are the first line of defence and we see some interesting aircraft during the summer – both those coming to work in the Yukon and those going to Alaska.
For many years, Conair has provided aerial tanker services in the Yukon. Based at Abbotsford, British Columbia, they build their own tankers from former military aircraft – this is the impressive Grumman S2 Tracker conversion they call a “Firecat”. It has a 3,296 litre (870 gallon) retardant tank where the torpedo bay used to be located. This photo of C-FOPU was shot in Whitehorse on July 17. We normally have 5 of these planes in the Yukon all summer. I love the heavy thunder of those old rotary engines!
The other tanker that Conair provides the Yukon is a 1957 Douglas DC-6B – C-GKUG is seen here at their Whitehorse base last August.
The Whitehorse aerial tanker base.
A pair of Canadair CL-215s are seen at Whitehorse on July 10. Operated by Buffalo Airways of Hay River, NWT, C-GCSX and C-GDHN had arrived to fight a fire that was burning just north of Whitehorse but rain overnight eliminated any threat and they continued on to Alaska.
This Beech 65, C-FCGH, is the “bird dog” for the Buffalo CL-215s. The role of a bird dog is to locate suitable drop zones for the larger, slower CL-215s. Bird dog pilots need almost as keen a sense of adventure as the “water-bomber” pilots – their job is to fly fast and low, often with dangerously low visibility conditions seconds away.
This CL-215, N262NR, is owned by Aero Flite of Kingman, Arizona. It just passed quickly through Whitehorse on July 13, en route to Alaska.
This Bell 205A-1, N223HT, operated by Lakeview Interagency Helitack of Hillsboro, Oregon, is used to put firefighters on the ground at a fire site.
Forest fires are something that I have a high level of interest in – partly due to the aircraft used to fight them, of course, but also because both our Carcross cabin and Mary Lake home would be tough to defend in the event of a fire. The response of fire crews this year has been incredible – over and over again I see reports of fires put out before they’re even an acre in size. In a country this vast, that is impressive. While fires like the one seen below burning on both sides of the Teslin River are a major nuisance for canoeists right now, I feel about as secure as it’s possible to be in the middle of a dry forest 🙂
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