A Trial By Fire-The Kern River Valley, July 2010
Hello All,
A few months ago, while waiting for a certain Spacecraft to arrive at Dulles, a member of this group got around to perusing some photos of mine on the ipod I keep on me for just that purpose while spotting. He came upon a photo of an Aero Union P-3A, and asked me why I hadn't shared that photo, and the story behind it here. These photos were taken 3 months after I had acquired my first camera set up, a Rebel XSI + 100-400mm, and while I was completely (or mostly) clueless photographically. A summary of these events was compiled by me about 2 months after the event. Most of these photos have all been re-edited with a better software program, and with 2 more years of editing experience. I took over 3,000 photos that day, and as such, doubt I've even found all the gems. Some here were seen by me only this evening!
Too keep the description of events as accurate as possible, the text seen here in italics is what I noted 2 years ago, with additions in normal text where applicable.
Anyhow, I hope you enjoy. I've seen a lot of things through my viewfinder in the past two years, but none has had the impact, intensity, and pure adrenaline of 26 July, 2010.
Now, we turn it over to a 17 year old boy on his first real photographic adventure...
This past summer, I had the (good) fortune of bearing witness to one of the most amazing things that I have ever seen; the immense diffuclty and bravery involved in aerial firefighting. Over the course of two insane days, I found myself swept up in and in the front seat to some of the most amazing flying that I have ever seen, or ever will again. Also, I was provided with the unique opportunity to get to show all y'all a little bit of what the brave men and women of the California Department of Forestry and their allies do to keep the people of California safe from fires like these.
Lets set the scene: A nice father-son camping trip after a frantic week at Red Flag. No planes, lots of treest, hiking, and maybe some river rafting. I just happened to spot the local airport, a tiny affair if there ever was one, on our way into town. Our next day, I decided I wanted to head over, and we saw the local firefighing helo leave. All the better I thought, I'd get him when he returns. Boy was I wrong. We soon saw a second, and drove in the general direction that he was headed. We pulled off on a ridge, and that's when the fun began.
By the time we got there, there was obvious smoke, but the fire was not all that big. We couldn't have been more than 35 minutes behind the first helo, tops
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As we were pulling up, a sole Neptune fire-bomber orbited over head. He would serve to be the last fixed-wing bomber we would see for quite a while that day, a fact that would come into play later
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It only dawned on me later that we never did see this Neptune drop, and I am truly unsure whether or not he did. There was no pilot aircraft to be seen, and I have no idea how he would have dropped, as the fire was incredibly high on the mountain at the time.
There were soon three helicopters on the scene, and they worked frantically to drop on the fire. They were aided by the incredible proximity of the fire to both a river and a reservoir. Each Helicopter was making a drop in the vicinity of every 5 to 6 minutes. It was an incredibly well orchestrated ballet of sorts, each one perfectly pulling off of the river and towards the fire, in a wagon-wheel of sorts.
At this point, a little should be said about the topography. These helicopter pilots were having to fly rather close to a very large, very tall mountain side, which formed the other side of the valley. They would then have to drop down into the river, keeping in mind the many houses and power-lines that criss-crossed the area
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Unfortunately, the fire broke out very close to structures, as can be seen by the house in this photo
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The pace of the helicopters became increasingly frenetic, and it became increasingly noticeable that there was nothing in the form of fixed-wing support, and hadn't been for some time now. The fire was becoming increasingly visible, as it burned its way down the mountainside, towards the river. The aproaches to the river that were being flown by the helicopters became far lower, and far faster.
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There were still only three helicopters on the scene, the one in the previous photo, and these two; which are seen respectively headed towards and away from the fire.
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The three helicopters involved at this point, while all some version of the Huey, demonstrated the different means by which helicopters can fight fires. Both hose-dipping and bucket-dipping helicopters were seen through the course of the day. As the flying got lower and lower due to the smoke, the backdrop for the shots became increasingly dramatic.
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By this point I doubt it needs to be said, but this fire was hot. Pardon the heat haze, but here is one of the Hueys dropping as the fire approaches the river. We had been even longer without a large fixed-wing drop, and the fire was picking up speed.
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At this point, the fire took a turn towards structures. The helicopters re-aligned their pattern, and began systematically dropping along the path of the fire branch that was headed towards the structures. Note the fire, house, and the fact that the helicopter is hovering over the river to see how close these events were getting.
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A good sign at last! I've never been fond of the P-3, but it sure looked good that day, and in orange, even better. He quickly established a circular orbit while he waited for his pathfinder aircraft.
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We weren't waiting long. Topography once again made itself felt. The approach to this flame was nothing short of daunting. The aircraft had to pull a fairly significant bank, dive into the valley, all while maintaining clearance above the somewhat tall ridges that littered the area.
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Talk about low. If I didn't actually remark aloud when I saw this, I certainly intended to. I didn't believe that the P-3 would be able to get down the valley. I was certainly wrong on that count!
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I'm sure all of us can agree that there is a moment, a pass, a shot, that we will always remember. We kind of have that mental snapshot to go with the file or piece of film we walked away with. For me, this was that moment. When he pulled across those rock faces, I just couldn't believe it. This was to be a dry run, to see if an actual drop was doable. After what they had to do to get in there, I wouldn't have been suprised if they had aborted.
Sadly, there is truly nothing more than can be done to this photo, even after considerable efforts in post processing, it was just too backlit and underexposed out of camera. I know for a fact that I could have captured this shot better today, but C'est La Vie.
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More time elapsed, and the pathfinder and Orion were still orbiting. Finally the little guy dropped on in again. Unfortunately, the fire had surged since the last pass, generating a lot of smoke. They can't have had much visibility, and it sure made for the weirdest shooting of my life.
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It was time for the big guy, and he sure didn't disappoint. My first time seeing a fire drop, and it blew me away. Just like before, the P-3 dropped down low, but laid down retardant this time.
With how frantic the day had become, I had no time to review shots whatsoever as the day progressed. As such, I didn't actually see this shot until October of 2010, some 4 months after it was taken. At that time, it became something of a hit for me, becoming my first Photographer's Choice and #1 for the day on Airliners.net. To this day, it is not my favorite photo from the day, but alas...
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This photo is one of 3 that I have taken that I have had printed, and was never really shared. I figure I can dust it off now...
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And with that, the Orion was gone. And it was back to Huey fest. The Orion drop did the trick, and the fire's advance towards the structures was halted. It soon began to race in the other direction, and there existed the great potential that it would soon cross the river.
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I'm not sure what came over on me for this one. I guess I wanted to see what was going on down there. By now, we were getting sporadic reports that the fire had indeed jumped the river.
At this point, a little more credit needs to be given to my father. Most people would have scoffed when their son proposed going closer to a fire that may or may not have hopped the river based on what we were hearing at the time. But he didn't skip a beat and we took off towards the river.
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Fixed-wing was back again. This Neptune made a good pass, and the fire headed towards the larger town of Kern was effectively halted. It continued, however, to burn in the other direction.
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And now, for a set of all new photos, discovered and edited this evening. Shooting against smoke made for some fascinating backgrounds, if you didn't mind a strong color-cast. Normally it is something I would try to tone down, but it seems to give context here.
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Law enforcement brought the official word. The fire was now on our side of the river. It was now time to truly consider evacuating, lest we get stuck in Kern.
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The Skycrane showed up around this time. And he is the only one who I could not determine a point of origin for. This pilot liked to fly low, and that is by the standard that had just been set by the Orion.
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One more Huey ended up arriving, making a total of four hueys and one Skycrane attacking the blaze. At this point, we finally dropped back.
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The river was no longer safe for the helos to refill in, and as such, they also dropped back to the reservoir.
The decision to pull off on this bluff was a literal wild guess on our part. Once again, I was fortunate to have a driver who could focus on the road while I focused on tracking the Skycrane. Luckier yet, we beat him to the destination.
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Even back at our campground, the herculean effort being mustered against the fire was evident.
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By that point in time, the fire had reached the point that it was considered an imminent enough threat to the town of Kern that we had to Bug out. If there is one photo I will regret not taking going forward, it was the view of the city, mountains in the background, and the inferno of smoke and flames in the background. At the time, I was too focused on keeping the big lens on for more aircraft...
We took the mountain roads to the west, and headed for Porterville. We weren't done with the fire yet, though, as we'll explore in part II.
