Initial Attack incident. The Blue Ridge Fire.

Situation: It is 1230hrs, and your district has had a multiple start day. You are given the task of dealing with the fire depicted below (The Blue Ridge fire.) Because of the high fire activity, no complete hand crews will be available to you until tomorrow morning. (Thats the bad news.)

You have a small airport (22 statute miles away from the fire.) capable of handling both light fixed wing and up to 5 medium size helicopters. You have also operated SEATs there in the past. (There is room for 3 SEATs at this airport.*) The closest large air tanker base is 500 miles to the north however, all the large air tankers are committed to other fires. You have just flown over the fire in a reconnaissance aircraft (Cessna 182) and developed the map below. (The stream to the south of the fire is a Blue ribbon trout habitat. The slope rises dramatically from the fire to the ridgeline to the north, and then descends gradual-ly north of the ridge towards the lake. The lake is a favorite recreation spot for backpackers and fisher-men. It is quite deep and spring fed. The entire area is continuous grasses and brush. The winds are light (5mph) and out of the southwest. Oh, by the way, there are no roads in the area.

Now the good news, such as it is. You have several fire and aviation assets that are under Call when needed contractual agreements, in the area. They are as follows:

1.Hughes MD500E, with bucket and long line capability, (Response time to local airport is 15 minutes.)

2.Bell Long Ranger 206, with bucket and long line capability. (At same location as the MD500E, same company owns both aircraft. Same response time.)

3.Cessna 182 at your local airport (This is the aircraft you used for the recon mission.)

4.(2) AT802s on Exclusive Use contract with the BLM (not your agency) at the local airport.( These two SEATs take up two of the three available spaces as referenced above.)

5.A Cessna 340 (ATGS type 1 equipped.)

6.Hughes UH1, with bucket and long line capability. (This is an ex-military helicopter and there-fore has a restricted use airworthiness certificate.)

7.(6) Heli-tack qualified personnel on your district. Only two (2) heli-tack personnel are helicopter manager qualified. (Response time= hour from call-up.)(10) Ground firefighters available on the district. (One of the ten is a qualified crew boss.)(Response time=45 minutes from call-up.) (This ground crew is capable of building line at a rate of 300 per hour.)One (1) ATGS qualified person on the district. (He is hour from the airport.)

8.A use agreement is in place with the airport authority, for use of the airport for both fixed wing and helicopter use.

You are the unit aviation manager on the district, and your boss, the Fire Management Officer (FMO), wants this fire off his plate as quickly as possible. It is your show.

Identify any special issues you need to brief the pilots and/or ground firefighters about and identify if there needs to be any restrictions on the tactics to be used. (Hint...water will be a factor.)