How to fight wildfires from the air

Wildfire season has already begun in Canada, and all signs suggest this year could be worse than the record-breaking season of 2023.As Canada braces for what’s expected to be an incredibly active wildfire season, Abbotsford, B.C., company Conair is hustling to train aerial firefighters. The National’s Ian Hanomansing spends a day in the cockpit learning what it takes to fight fires from the sky.

The purpose of an aerial assault is to cool a fire down or limit its spread, so ground crews can safely move in to contain it. But attacking a fire from the air requires careful choreography.The training mission CBC witnessed involved a Cessna aircraft — named "the bird dog" — and a Dash 8-400 air tanker. The bird dog is the lead plane, determining the plan of attack and directions for the tanker, which drops the retardant or water.

Aircraft parked outside Conair's hangars at Abbotsford International Airport. "You usually drop at 100 feet above the canopy,'" Gahan said. "You want the retardant or the water to drop lose all forward momentum, and then rain down on the trees. If you drop too high, you don't get the accuracy."Conair is also converting Dash 8-400 passenger airliners into air tankers.

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