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Fighting Fire at First Sight

By Mike Killian

Published on: February 8, 2022
Estimated reading time 23 minutes, 30 seconds.

A prudent investment has allowed Florida's Flagler County FireFlight to stop wildfires before they blaze.

In 1998, Florida’s Flagler County suffered an extreme wildfire, forcing an evacuation of the county. It was the first time in United States history that an entire county was evacuated due to a wildfire, which burned 82,000 acres of timber valued at $328 million, and destroyed 71 homes and damaged 175 other. The terrifying event was a wakeup call for local authorities, who recognized the need for a county-wide asset and program to attack fires from the air and contain them before they burned out of control. So, Flagler County’s FireFlight unit was born.

Central Florida is the lightning capital of North America, so it’s no surprise that many fires there begin due to lightning strikes or downed power lines from intense thunderstorms. Flagler County’s FireFlight unit employs an Airbus AS350 B3 AStar helicopter to hunt down those fires before they can rage out of control. All photos by Mike Killian

“The county did some research and found that, if we had a helicopter, it would have stopped many of the major crown fires that … did all the damage,” says FireFlight flight operations chief Dana Morris.

The FireFlight team and people of Flagler County are in good hands with Morris. He has accumulated 12,000 flight hours since he started flying helicopters in 1979, and his firefighting experience spans over 30 years and includes time as the primary pilot for Grand Canyon National Park for three years and Yosemite National Park for four years flying firefighting, law enforcement and search and rescue missions. He’s also a Florida certified wildland firefighter, structural firefighter 1, first responder and is certified with the U.S. Forest Service for aerial firefighting.

Dana Morris, flight operations chief for Flagler County’s FireFlight unit.

Following the 1998 fires, Flagler County and FireFlight hired Morris and in 2002 purchased a used Airbus AS350 B3 Astar helicopter for $1.55 million, using Landfill Bond money designated for fire suppression. The single engine light utility workhorse is in service around the world and may be best known for breaking the world record for the highest-altitude landing and takeoff in 2005 atop Mount Everest at 8,848 metres (29,029 feet).

Central Florida is the lightning capital of North America, with explosive storms a daily occurrence for six months of the year, so it’s no surprise that many fires there begin due to lightning strikes or downed power lines from intense thunderstorms. FireFlight has always had a focus on hunting down those fires as they begin, rather than waiting for them to rage out of control into newsworthy infernos driven by strong storm winds.

Interstate 95 is one of the busiest highways in the nation and cuts straight through Flagler, so FireFlight is frequently called to I-95 accidents.

“Our program is the most in-depth, progressive firefighting agency program in the southeast U.S., in the way we view and attack wildfires,” says Flagler County Flight Operations / FireFlight chief pilot and director of aircraft maintenance Todd Whaley. “Others may call their helicopters out for the big fires, but they are not out consistently training and containing or extinguishing the small ones. After a thunderstorm passes, we will go out with our water bucket and hunt down lightning fires as they start. There’s no other agency in the state that does that. All other agencies are reactive to the initial call of a fire, but we go out and find the fires and then call those other agencies in to assist us before they can become massive wildfires.”

Whaley is no stranger to the mission. He’s a U.S. Navy veteran and Florida-certified wildland firefighter, structural firefighter 1, first responder and a member of the Airborne Law Enforcement Association, with over 4000 flight hours in both helicopters and airplanes since 1999. He’s been flying with FireFlight for nine years and has worked with the Florida Forest Service and flown for law enforcement in other counties.

FireFlight crews on the B3 helicopter have dropped more than 1.8 million gallons of water, or roughly 8,600 bucket drops, on countless fires.

“We may put out six or eight little fires that the public never knows about, but it’s about preventing those big fires that threaten property and structures in the first place,” he explains. “Depending on the conditions (such as drought index), we may do reconnaissance once or twice a day so we can get them while they’re small. We’ll even recon people’s pile burns in their yards, getting on top of them and verifying that they are doing so safely and staying within constraints and following the laws, or we will call in the Florida Forest Service to handle them.”

Surprisingly, Flagler County’s FireFlight is one of only two operators in the entire state with its own fire department aircraft. Miami-Dade Fire Rescue is the other. All other areas of the state are serviced by law enforcement Sheriff office aircraft and/or Florida Forest Service aircraft. 

Multi-Mission Asset

In the years since 2002, FireFlight crews and their nimble B3 helicopter have dropped more than 1.8 million gallons of water on countless fires, or roughly 8,600 bucket drops. They can reach most fires before any ground crews, flying anywhere within the county in 15 minutes at speeds up to 150 mph, equipped with a 210-gallon “Bambi Bucket” and 10-gallon firefighting foam unit, which provides the equivalent firefighting power of 10 water buckets. 

In one fire in July 2019, Whaley scooped and dropped 44 buckets of water – 9,500 gallons – in an hour, containing the fire to just nine acres. Whaley had just left a support mission assisting ground firefighters with two small brush fires in western Flagler County, but as he left the area, he saw a new fire to the southeast and immediately began attacking it. Local ground crews could not reach the fire soon enough, and the Florida Forest Service was delayed in its response. If not for Whaley and FireFlight, that fire could have easily grown to 50 acres and raged beyond control before ground crews could begin fighting it.

Their B3 was the first ever used in North America, featuring a Arriel 2B engine and a mechanical throttle linkage. It’s also equipped with a FLIR camera (Forward Looking InfraRed), mainly used to assist law enforcement. FireFlight has assisted in the arrest of numerous criminals. The helicopter crew can maintain direct contact with deputies on the ground, and its camera can read the license plate identification of individual cars.

In one example this past March, FireFlight was called to assist the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office in searching for someone who entered a residence through an open garage door and attempted to kidnap a child. The suspect was found and arrested. And in early 2019, FireFlight assisted in the arrest of a dangerous fugitive featured on the TV series, “America’s Most Wanted,” providing added protection to ensure he couldn’t escape during a three-hour vehicle standoff with deputies.

“We chose the helicopter due to its versatility,” says Whaley. “One of the main factors involved with that is the multi-missions that we fly. We are primary firefighting, but we also fly as an air ambulance, we do law enforcement assists, we do search and rescues, and conduct many other community service operations. The helicopter is modular, so we can switch out from each mission in less than 10 minutes.”

“If not for Whaley and FireFlight, that fire could have easily grown to 50 acres and raged beyond control before ground crews could begin fighting it.”

They are also trained and prepared to assist the Land Management Department with aerial ignition of prescribed fires as part of its mitigation program, which is safer and faster than lighting fires from the ground.

FireFlight visits local schools and air shows on occasion, to engage the public whom they serve and inspire students to pursue careers in helicopter aviation. “There is a shortage of helicopter pilots and mechanics,” says Whaley of the public outreach missions. “I think it’s because young people are not exposed to [the possibilities]. This is the time to make an impression on them – plant that seed. I still remember my first plane ride when I was five years old like it was yesterday. I wasn’t on my first helicopter until my 20s, when I was in the Navy, and the experience changed my whole career outlook.”

The team has saved many lives as an air ambulance when called on, not only serving Flagler County but the entire Florida peninsula. “We do a lot of inter-facility missions like transporting patients between local hospitals, and we do a lot of trauma scene missions, such as car accidents,” says Frank Mesta, senior flight medic for Flagler County Fire Rescue and FireFlight. Interstate 95 is one of the busiest and most notorious highways in the nation, and it cuts straight through Flagler, so FireFlight gets called to I-95 accidents quite often. “Everything I have on our aircraft I have on a ground ambulance unit,” adds Mesta. 

Flagler County’s FireFlight unit was born following an extreme wildfire in 1998.

Since 2013, FireFlight has flown around 240 missions for medical airlifts, 900 fire recon missions, around 180 firefighting missions, roughly 220 missions assisting law enforcement, and over 90 search and rescue missions.

Marine Rescue

One of the more unique capabilities FireFlight provides is a marine rescue operation, able to deploy rescue swimmers on short notice and retrieve them and those being rescued with a stokes basket. Six fire rescue medics serve with FireFlight.

“Time is critical, so when we hear a water rescue go out, we will launch immediately to put a swimmer in the water if lifeguards can’t get to those people first,” says Whaley. “We have a lot of boat traffic off our beaches, but the closest Coast Guard asset is out of Savannah, Georgia or Clearwater Beach on the opposite side of the state. That’s an extended delay before they can get a Coast Guard helicopter on scene, so our thinking is, if we can get a rescue swimmer on scene, we can deploy them and assist where necessary until we can get a boat or jet ski from our marine patrol units to them.”

FireFlight trains in conjunction with the Fire Rescue marine rescue team and other law enforcement agencies.

For such missions, FireFlight will bring a four-person life raft that can be deployed directly from the helicopter and inflates as soon as it hits the water. If people in the water are too exhausted or otherwise unable to climb in themselves, a rescue swimmer will assist. They utilize the ‘10 feet 10 knots’ approach, because it’s better for the victim, getting the helicopter in close while slowly moving forward. “It keeps the wind and water created by the rotor [downwash] out of the victim’s face,” adds Whaley. “It also allows the medics to get to them quickly and efficiently.”

FireFlight trains in conjunction with the Fire Rescue marine rescue team on techniques where swimmers deploy from the helicopter to combine efforts with rescuers on jet skis. As recently as this past September, company medics trained to complete their Shallow Water Egress Training (SWET) to ensure they can escape from the helicopter safely should an accident leave it and its crew upside down in the water.

“This training is very important, and it could very well save the life of the crew,” says Morris. “Of course we hope we’ll never have to use it, but we do fly over the ocean and the intracoastal. It will enable the crew to safely get out of the aircraft if we were to end up in the water.”

High Safety Standards

The Airbus AS350 B3 Astar can still carry out its missions well, but obviously cannot operate forever. There is now talk about replacing it within the next three to five years with a H-125 variant, which has some extended safety items, dual hydraulics, better performance, versatility, and lower maintenance. 

“The H-125 has a stronger engine and stronger power margin to lift the same amount of weight that we lift with our Astar B3,” says Whaley. “But our aircraft still has good bone structure. It only needs a few things here and there. We can maintain it well and we have great customer service with Airbus and our other vendors – [we] have service by the hour on the engine with Safran, which has been a great asset for us. It will need upgrades like a new paint job and medical interior, but for now we can continue to keep our machine flying.”

One of FireFlight’s more unique capabilities is a marine rescues, able to deploy rescue swimmers on short notice.

All maintenance is done in-house too, with both Whaley and Morris working a seven-day on, seven-day off rotation to perform all the maintenance and inspections themselves. They also have a backup mechanic from a neighboring county experienced with the helicopter.

While FireFlight works hard to keep people safe, it is local dispatch that watches out for FireFlight on their missions to keep the helicopter, pilots, flight medics and patients safe. They employ a system called “flight following” that requires the use of a specialized website application, once-every-10-minute operational checks, and accountability documentation that is updated in real time so that every move the helicopter makes is captured.

“Flight following is required by the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) whenever you transport a patient, but we use it every time we take the helicopter up,” says Morris. “We also go above and beyond the FAA regulations for the safety of our operations.”

Both Morris and Whaley are evaluated annually by the FAA to ensure standards are met to fly FireFlight as an air ambulance. They are required to take a three-hour oral exam to test their knowledge of FAA regulations, operations specifications, and the general operations manual specific to Flagler County, as well as FireFlight helicopter specific questions about its systems, performance, and emergency procedures. 

They go through a checklist at the beginning of each day to ensure the aircraft is flightworthy, which is then confirmed with dispatch before taking off. Morris and Whaley also complete a Flight Risk Analysis Tool (FRAT) before flying the helicopter, which gives them a number between 0 and 30, with 11 being the highest numeric risk in which the helicopter is permitted to fly.

“That might be what is allowable, but we don’t fly if our FRAT number is 11, or anywhere close,” Morris said. “We’ll turn it down.”

Flight followers have their own FAA checklist, an electronic Flight Planning Form to safeguard procedures (paper versions are available in the event of a power outage).

Flagler County’s FireFlight is one of only two operators in Florida with its own fire department aircraft.

“Our dispatch center documents who the pilot is, how much fuel the helicopter has, destination, FRAT number, and how many souls are on board,” says Flagler County Sheriff’s Office director of communications Christina Mortimer. “In the event of an emergency, our dispatchers are trained to make proper notifications and provide the information required by the FAA.” 

The next time you’re driving the I-95 through central Florida, or just visiting the beaches, if you see a red, white and blue helicopter patrolling the skies overhead, give FireFlight a wave and thanks for what they do. 

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