The recent fires in Los Angeles underlined the enduring importance of aerial firefighting, with the S-70 Firehawk — an adaptation of Sikorsky’s longstanding Black Hawk — developed to meet this demand. Sikorsky and United Rotorcraft are now looking to the future of the platform, including the potential for enhanced autonomy.
The commercial version of the Firehawk was first developed for LA County Fire Department (LACoFD) in the late 1990s. While different operators have varying requirements, the fundamental changes to the Black Hawk involve modifications to the belly of the aircraft to add a 1,000-US gallon (3,785-liter) tank, as well as high landing gear to raise the height of the aircraft. These adaptations are delivered by United Rotorcraft.
Beyond this, modifications include crew seating for firefighters, tool racks to hold equipment, like chainsaws and axes, an inlet barrier filter from Aerometals, as well as multi-function displays for the tank to illustrate such data as the drop pattern, remaining volume, specifications of water drop, etc.
Mike Sagely, senior pilot at LACoFD, has a long history of flying the Black Hawk, piloting the platform in the U.S. Army between 1987 to 2009. After retiring from the army, he moved into firefighting as “the only job I felt that would scratch the itch for more tactical flying.”
LACoFD operates three aircraft daily, 24 hours per day, as its minimum daily response matrix, Sagely said. It currently operates two S-70i variants of the Firehawk.
The primary mission as a fire department is fire suppression, but there are a wide range of demands on the department, Sagely said, including trauma transport — for an automobile accident, for instance — or another type of medical rescue.
“You could turn right around and two hours later be doing a hoist rescue in the mountains for a hiker or a mountain biker,” he said, adding that the Firehawk is “set up to be multimission, so whatever it is that we’re asked to do, we’re ready to do it.”
Sagely said the Firehawk is a uniquely versatile platform, something he also experienced in the military with the Black Hawk. This is essential in a huge county like LA, which has a population of more than 11 million people and an area of more than 4,000 square miles (10,360 square kilometers), making it one of the largest in the U.S.
“We need an aircraft that can carry medical gear and technical rescue gear, and cover the entire county,” he said.
“We need a tactical aircraft. We need an aircraft that can land in rugged areas. We need overall performance of the aircraft to work at higher elevations but still have a very robust payload.”
Orange County Fire Authority (OCFA) is the newest operator of the Firehawk, using two of the latest S-70M variants since 2024. Joshua Murphy, fire pilot at OCFA, explained that the authority recently retired its two Bell UH-1H Huey helicopters and was looking for a replacement to return to four aircraft in the fleet.
Wildland fire operations will always be the primary mission for OCFA, he explained. The number of homes built in wildland interface has increased, while the severity of fire weather continues to increase. It was evident, Murphy said, that increasing the size and capacity of aircraft was necessary to effectively fight fires.
“OCFA air operation doesn’t only conduct water dropping operations, however. We also conduct day and nighttime remote rescue operations. We can’t go out and extract an injured hiker from a canyon trail in a large helitanker,” he said. “The Firehawk was determined to be the perfect multimission operational aircraft to increase our firefighting capability while also providing exceptional rescue capabilities.”
The new platforms operate alongside two Bell 412 platforms. The addition of Type 1 Firehawks has enabled OCFA to be more effective at “hitting a fire’s flank and creating a noticeable difference in a fire’s progression with water dropping alone,” Murphy said.
“We currently staff one Firehawk and one 412 24/7,” Murphy continued. “When we have significant fire weather, or a partnering county requests assistance, we are able to increase staffing to support both Firehawks on the line, in addition to our 412.”
Murphy was speaking during the extended red flag fire weather event in LA. “We have flown one Hawk up to [LA County and LA City] to help with the Palisades and Eaton fires, maintained one Hawk with a crew ready to go at Fullerton Airport for any in-county fires, and forward deployed our 412 to John Wayne Airport to spread our assets for even coverage of the county,” he said.
While large wind events are relatively prevalent in Southern California, one- to 10-acre fires that never make the news are more common, Murphy noted. Since OCFA covers a densely populated wildland-urban interface, these smaller fires can very quickly threaten homes. This demands a coordinated use of OCFA’s helicopters, he explained.
“We utilize the 412 to provide initial aerial oversight and recon, aerial asset control, and water dropping in support of our ground crews,” he said. “Our Firehawk goes directly to a water source and then begins dropping as much water, as fast as possible, on the fire. It is very effective at putting down a small fire before the fire has the chance to grow and start causing major impacts.”
Additionally, Murphy said OCFA is training crews to perform rescue missions using the larger Firehawk. This comes with some challenges, such as an increased rotor wash that affects ground operations and a larger footprint that can prevent landing access to some tighter areas.
“The increased lift capabilities and cabin size, however, open up options for safer hoist operations [to include the ability to land safely after an engine failure] and the ability to extract significantly more personnel.”
Operators work closely with United Rotorcraft to ensure the platforms are fit for their specific needs. Murphy said the company “truly brought us in as partners in the
buildout process. They kept us in the design process and showed that they legitimately valued our opinions on how to make the aircraft the best possible fire and rescue platform it can be.”
This included cabin configuration options, advanced mapping, and tank options, he said. He sees potential for tank design and component selection that will reduce gross weight and provide more water-lifting capability in the future.
“While we have a 1,000-[US] gal [3,785-L] tank, we are not taking 1,000 [US] gal on the first drop because of max gross weight restrictions. The lighter we can get the aircraft before we take on water will get us closer and closer to being able to take on 1,000 [US] gal of water from the start to the end of the flight,” Murphy noted.
Sagely said LACoFD has worked closely with United Rotorcraft to enhance its legacy Firehawks, including changes to the tank and a new snorkel assembly that pumps water more quickly. This features a modular design, he said, meaning it can easily be “taken off and replaced.”
Michael Williams is senior director for strategy and marketing at United Rotorcraft. He said the development of the Firehawk has always depended on a close relationship with operators beginning with LACoFD in the late 1990s — from the retractable snorkel to pulse lights and sirens. This has continued through its work with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire), which is now the largest operator of the Firehawk with 13 S-70i platforms in service and three more on the way. Cal Fire was among the agencies actively fighting the record-breaking fires in Los Angeles, demonstrating the critical role its Firehawk fleet plays in combating wildfires across the state.
“Beyond the fundamentals of the Firehawk — the high landing gear, tank and mounting points — we have developed with our customers a range of additional changes, from moving maps to HTAWS [helicopter terrain awareness and warning system], spotlights, Aerometals’ inlet barrier filter systems, all the add-ons that customers need to support their missions,” Williams said.
He emphasised the multimission nature of the aircraft, noting that a customer like Cal Fire needs to be able to transition from fire suppression to search-and-rescue with a hoist, as well as crew transport, cargo transport, law enforcement, and emergency medical evacuation. The Firehawk benefits from years of military experience in the Black Hawk, he noted.
Pointing to specific design changes, Williams said the aircraft now has two options available for the tank: the existing metal tank from Kawak and a composite tank produced by Dart Aerospace, which is designed to be lighter to carry more water. Different customers opt for different options, with LACoFD opting for the metal Kawak tank, for instance, while the Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control has selected the new Dart tank.
Williams underlined advances in the systems which control water drops. “It’s not all or nothing. If I have 1,000 [US] gal [3,785-L], I can set the system to only drop 200 [US] gal [757 L] or 600 [US] gal [2,271 L] at a time. The pilot can hit patches of brush fires, and they can hit a little bit here, then fly to the next point, hit that one, etc. That’s an important benefit.”
In the cockpit, there have been advances toward multi-function color displays, he said, with S-70M models having a “moving map system which does an overlay in the pilot cockpit, so that’s helpful for navigation and ground control coordination.”
Additionally, Williams pointed to the recent pursuit of proximity sensors, enabling the platform to detect the distance from the ground in relation to the tank.
“The addition of lighter weight composite tanks was a big step, as well as improvement to the speed of snorkel pumping. The other advances are geared around system awareness and pilot capability enhancement, taking the workload off the pilot,” he added, also highlighting advances in night vision systems to enable operators to fight fires in the dark.
Kate Grammer, regional sales lead for Firehawk at Sikorsky, highlighted the importance of versatility, noting that dropping water is often not the most critical element of a mission set.
“The aircraft needs to be able — within a single mission — to make multiple trips to drop water as it’s supposed to, but within that same call, the operator or the department may have to do a search-and-rescue with that same aircraft. It’s not like it needs to return to the base to be reconfigured to be a search-and-rescue aircraft. It can absolutely do it right there.”
Looking forward, Grammer pointed to the potential evolution of autonomous aerial wildfire containment technology. The company has partnered with Rain, a leader in the area, to show how Sikorsky’s Matrix autonomous flight system can be used to suppress a fire in its incipient stage, with two demonstrations taking place at Sikorsky’s headquarters in Stratford, Connecticut.
Grammer noted that the optionally-piloted vehicle (OPV) and Matrix can be used in autonomous, single-pilot or dual-pilot modes. The single-pilot mission could be particularly appealing for Firehawk users in the future, she noted, with three operators interested in the technology.
“Many of our operators already perform a single-pilot mission. It’s very appealing that our autonomy software could help them operate within the parameters they should be operating and providing additional safety features that can protect them and help them do the mission.”
United Rotorcraft would convert the Firehawk platforms to utilize the Matrix technology. Williams said that while he expects the technology to take several years before it is used as standard, “it makes sense on a lot of layers, and many operators are willing to consider it, so I could see that happening.”
As well as autonomy, Williams expects to see further advances in crew safety and reducing the crew burden. He anticipates seeing further investment in collision sensors, as well as the integration of telemetry from the ground to indicate the location of a fire, along with other details.
“Loading that into the flight plan in real time will help take the load off the pilot and improve the efficiency of the mission.”
Sagely also pointed to the potential for autonomy in firefighting helicopters, though he said this would not necessarily involve full autonomy. However, there are numerous issues to consider before autonomous aircraft can fly in close proximity to each other in fighting a fire.
“Strategy and tactics on a fire are very important. When the fire is moving, it’s dynamic, so it’s always changing. The strategies and/or the tactics will change. And right now, that is the human component that you can’t match. You can’t program a machine to think and make those adaptive changes very rapidly.”
He also pointed to the evolution of HTAWS and wire strike avoidance systems.
“One of the primary dangers is hitting obstacles or wires. And there are some systems that are out there that can assist with keeping track of those and … at night specifically, when you can’t necessarily see them visually.”
Grammer expects to see growing demand for Firehawks in the coming years, both within the U.S. and internationally.
“It is growing, and we certainly do have interest on the international side. I’m working on several proposals right now alongside United Rotorcraft for an international variant,” she said. “So, I do see growth in this market beyond the U.S. scope.”