![]() ![]() ![]() "They'll demonstrate the run while looking for hazards, unusual things like wind drift," Mr. Upon arriving at the scene, the bird-dog aircraft explains the manoeuvre that is required and flies the path first. "We always work with a bird-dog aircraft – he's the command-and-control aircraft – and we will contact him five minutes from the fire." "Based on what we received on our smartphone, we will plug the latitude longitude into the GPS, and choose an altitude that's appropriate to fly to that fire," Mr. Wilson receives an e-mail with all the necessary information, makes his way to the runway and begins the preflight checklist procedure with his co-pilot as the ground crew loads the aircraft with a fire-retardant solution. Wilson said he spends about 200 hours in the air, and between 1,200 and 1,300 hours on standby. "For example, today I'm on a one-hour response time beginning at 9, and at noon they move that up to a 30-minute response time," he said.ĭuring the four-month wildfire season in British Columbia, Mr. Other days, he is assigned a response time, indicating how quickly he would need to return to base if a wildfire were to break out. ![]() Wilson and his team are required to remain on standby at a base in Kamloops. Wilson, 59, explains that each day, the BC Wildfire Service sends out an alert indicating the probability of wildfire occurrence. ![]()
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