Nevada Division of Forestry Chief Pilot Kris Kirkland stands next to a UH-1H Huey on Oct. 16. The helicopter is one of three available to the Tahoe Basin on high fire risk days.
Katelyn Welsh | Tahoe Daily Tribune
Nevada Division of Forestry Chief Pilot Kris Kirkland leans over from the hanger bench at the Minden-Tahoe Airport and looks out the open helicopter bay. On clear days, the pilot can see the burn scars from two or three fires in plain sight.
“That Tamarack fire,” he says, “just destroyed a beautiful landscape.”
Typically, the fires this helitack crew fight don’t get big enough to have a widely discussed name or garner them large praise. And that’s exactly how they want it.
Department of Forestry Deputy Administrator Eric Antle said the reward is in being the first to the fire, getting there fast, and keeping the fire so small, the general public has no idea it ever happened.
“Wildfires don’t know the jurisdiction,” Antle said, “We’re talking about a magical line across timber.”
Kirkland describes them as one of the special forces in fire. The helitack teams consists of about six members and one supervisor who get transported to the fire by helicopter. Once the crew is on the ground, they work to fight the fire from below while the helicopter assists with its water bucket from above.
He said his team has suppressed the majority of one- or two-acre fires, keeping them from becoming megafires.
It’s a critical asset to getting a jump on fires and an asset they’ve now made more readily available to the Tahoe Basin through.
A new interstate agreement with Cal Fire allows Nevadans to place one of their helicopters at the Lake Tahoe Airport on high fire risk days. Kirkland says that’s when the fire weather forecast puts the burn index in the 90th percentile.
It’s on these days that the temperatures are high, humidity is low, and other components from fuel to a spread factor could potentially lead to a very damaging fire. Kirkland refers to it as the perfect storm of elements.
Another component, he says, are red flag warnings.
Cal Fire Assistant Fire Chief Brian Newman with Cal Fire said a helicopter in the Tahoe Basin can make all the difference with initial attacks on a fire, especially on those extreme days.
Cal Fire does have a helicopter contracted in Truckee, so on days that it’s there and the fire danger is high, they typically wouldn’t call NDF.
But Antle says due to nationwide shortages, the Truckee aircraft likely won’t be as available.
Cal Fire often relies on a helicopter stationed in Pollock Pines as well, but a helicopter in the basin speeds up the response time by about 5-10 minutes.
Nevada’s helicopter can cover Minden to South Lake in about 7 minutes. But Kirkland says realistically, it would take them 15-20 minutes.
It takes for the Sierra Front Interagency Dispatch Center in Minden to get the call adds valuable time. The dispatch chain gets shortened when the aircraft is already stationed at the Lake Tahoe airport, leading to a quicker response time in an area Kirkland describes as “very hypersensitive and critical…with a lot of people and a lot of homes.”
According to Cal Fire’s Newman, it isn’t as critical in the Sierra on days when the winds are low, saying lighting strikes on a tree might smolder for bit, but they can typically get it under control.
On red flag warning days, he says that extra 10 minutes can make all the difference.
He equates it to the difference of being able to contain a fire and “one getting out of control and being so much more damaging.”
Although this new arrangement increases fire readiness, both agencies say it comes with some limitations.
“The thing about aircraft in wildland firefighting,” says Newman, “it’s not the silver bullet.”
High winds or heavy smoke can ground helicopters, and if Nevada needs them, that gets priority in the agreement.
Even with a helicopter in Tahoe, he said they’d still have the capacity to respond to something in their territory.
Both agencies say these collaborations are crucial to stay on top of fires around state lines and jurisdiction boundaries, where they would otherwise slow resource movement.
Antle says the two agencies have always had an agreement that allowed NDF to respond with resources, but only within a 25 mile limit over state lines.
Both agencies have seen multiple devastating fires in recent years and determined the need for increased aircraft flexibility beyond that 25 mile mark.
