Fire Fighting & Smoke Inhalation

[Bomber ARIS]

Now that all y'all firefighting PPRuNers have had time to rest awhile..................are any of you able to explain how much of a problem smoke is, from a human's point of view.

We've heard about fire/smoke induced flameouts, but from the physiological standpoint, do you guys require any Personal Protective Equipment(PPE) to be worn in flight to counter smoke inhalation :yuk: , smoke inhalation :{ , heat stress, etc

(It appears to me that me majority of the aircraft I see on fires are not AC (Air Conditioning) equipped)

[helmet fire]

Not much point having aircon when you have the door off most of the time.

PPE for fire bombing? They are getting there. It is only the last two or three seasons here in Oz where they have required helmets and nomex, and even then they don't police it. Still do not require Life jackets or HUET for water bombing ops.

As for smoke - IMHO there are few reasons to fly through smoke thick enough to cause significant discomfort. Bad reasons are:
Engine damage (Smoke and dust particles in the air)
Engine Surging (superheated air)
Engine wear (leaves a corrsive film through your engine)
Rotor wear & tear (corrosive and erosive on blades, hitting unburnt or burning material)
Perspex damage (heat damage, and hitting unburnt or burning material)
Loss of visibility (you wouldnt fly into a cloud low level would you?)
Loss of other traffic (fires are busy, and an aircraft suddenly emerging from the smoke in front of you can brown your shorts!)

But at least if you drop in the smoke, no one can see you missed! :8 :8 :}

[Rumourorfact]

Just to correct some inaccuracies - Victoria Australia requires Helmets, flight suits, life jackets and various other "safety" related gear for fire operations and has done for many years. It is policed - in fact its go-no go conditions of contract. Dont get confused with some of the NSW requirements which often are lesser.

[Red Wine]

Helmet...

Still do not require Life jackets or HUET for water bombing ops.

The clients may not, but CASA certainly does require lifejackets.

[belly tank]

Red Wine,

Dont get me wrong as im about to put the cat amongst the sparrows here.

I agree with over water ops , life jackets etc, and some instances of water bombing where pickups are required in lakes etc.

however as im sure you may know, most ( not all) water bombing ops are done out of dams no bigger than your rotor disk, with long line and sometimes open ground, im sure youve been to fires where the only source of water is a buoy wall in a paddock, where the depth is no higher than your shoulders, would this also constitute a wearing of life jackets? maybe floaties and bubble bath would be an alternative!

as i said before i myself would wear one on fires where it permits, but mandatory, i think is going to far. there will come a day where the pilot will be lathered in that much safety and breathing equipment it will take KY Jellly to fit him in the cabin.

by the way i make wearing of nomex and helmet mandatory in our machine which i think is a must, im not anti safety by all means.

sorry to put a negative light on such an important issue however it should be the pilot in command to asses this on the day and pack his life jacket in his go away kit in the need of it possibly being used where required.

[Bomber ARIS]

Thanks for the responses so far, but the thrust of the original post was to enquire about the physiological effects, particularly smoke inhalation and heat stress, and what you guys do to minimise/avoid this.

Do you find the smoke problems cummulative over the long days in the saddle or am I interested in a "problem" that just doesn't exist?

Or is coughing up one's ringpiece, with watery eyes:{ , in a high traffic density, low level environment (that just so happens to be on fire!!)just the unavoidable reality of the mission??

(I appreciate that you´re not all flying Boeing Vertols or KA-32s, etc., with bubble doors)

Thanks again for the input

[Red Wine]

Together with my concern with Hot Re-Fueling and the Pilotless Helicopter, I just wish that all Aussie Rotorheads know their obligations under the current legislation whilst doing their daily thingo.....and hopefully keep them dry when the legal ******s are trying to hassle them.

Remember the basic CAO....if you can't glide [fixed wing] or autorotate [proper aircraft] to land when you suffer an engine[s] failure over water then you must...etc etc.

If hovering over water, be that a lake, dam, septic system or swimming pool, if your engine[s] quit, then you had either better be able to fly to the bank or have a lifejacket.......

That is the law as it stands today.

[helmet fire]

Rumourorfact: quite right, I was refering to NSW mainly.

bellt tank: I agree totally. Carry the life jacket and where it when you reckon that either legislation requires, or you deem it safer to wear one. But here is a typically ridiculous legal question for the small dam ops: if you are belly hooking in the middle of a small dam, say 2 X rotor diameter, are you within safe autorotative distance of land?

Bomber: I think I addressed your question the first time around: we should NOT fly through smoke that thick.
Reptitive ops in a mildly smokey environment is par for the course, but can increase fatigue. Most I know carry, and drink, lots of water during the job to reduce heat stresses, but there is little else really required IMHO.

[John Eacott]

Bomber,

Much as HF said, the smoke is just a daily issue that you tend to get used to. Early days I flew the BK with the doors on & the air con going, but it's not the most efficient or accurate way of fire fighting ;)

Doors off keeps the airflow going, to keep you as cool as possible, plus copious amounts of water throughout the day. Heavy smoke can't always be avoided, some people suffer, others don't. Dust blown up from landing in unprepared areas is often more of an eye sight hazard, but a flush with eye wash usually fixes that. Spectacle wearers (like me) have more of a problem here, the dust often "recirculates" under the lenses and exacerbates the problem.

On the subject of glasses, I've found the hard way that bifocals and sling ops are a Bad Thing, making height judgement more difficult. Now wear straight lenses, or no spectacles, when fire fighting or sling loading :)

Other issue with fire/smoke, on really bad fires the ash & embers can get into the cabin, so it becomes even more important to have fire retardent clothing and cabin interior. The co pilot's seat cover has had more than one hole burnt from an ember floating in through the open pilot's door :eek:

[helmet fire]

John, I always carry a full bucket back to my fuel or landing sites each time to wet down the area and stop the dust hazard. Also makes the bucket fly better when it's full. I try putting on the door when doing pax ops so I can try and keep dust out of the aircraft, and my eyes.

Whaddayareckon?

[John Eacott]

HF,

In a perfect world......

Agree, and I try the same, but it's not always possible, especially some of the last minute re tasks around NPWS :rolleyes:

[zhishengji751]

Hi Bellytank,

Your ditching comment stirred my memory, where the B206 came down into the Corrin Dam just over a year ago, though it appears smoke was not a factor in this case.

B206 Accident on Oz fires (http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?threadid=77983)

[Autorotate]

John & HF,

I have to say that every bucketing helo I saw on the Terrey Hills fire recently none of the pilots had life vests on and all of the bucketing was out of big dams or the river inlets. Heck even I was at fault, jumped in with a BK driver for a few hours and we were pulling water out of the waterways as yachts motored past us. HF would have got plenty of video of it.

Just wondering if RFS are ever going to police that part of it, as the posts here make a point that if something did go wrong then its very deep water in some places.

Helmet Fire - did you get some good footage at Terrey Hills.

Autorotate.

[belly tank]

Autorotate,

I dont think the RFS can police issues such as this where it is clearly a case for CASA and the AOC Holders to adress, i do however beleive the RFS has the authority to reccomend the use of equipment and yes this is a touchy topic, helmets , nomex suits gloves are also classed PPE so why not lifejackets.?

the reasoni think is that being the nature of the job helmets and flight suits will come into their own nearly on every occasion on a fire if accidents do occur, but the wearing of jackets should be left to the operator of the aircraft, weather the ops manual states the wearing in certain sites on fires like you mentioned in a river system or large lake etc.

i would do the same, but why the need to wear a jacket using a buoy wall for example. pilots and their companys have a duty of care i think common sense approach to this regulation weather it comes into effect we will have to see.

then comes the issue of a water bombing acft falling into the awk category, thus not LEGALY requiring the use of PFD'S but again yes i would wear one and i do on overwater awk flights etc.

i can see this topic being heavily debated and there is an article in the latest flight safety mag about this issue. after the canberra accident the ATSB will RECCOMEND to casa the wearing of lifejackets in waterbombing missions.

anyway ive had my 2 bobs worth anyone else care to comment!!

cheers guys, its friday night and im going back to watch the cricket!

[Nigel Osborn]

Do you need to wear a life jacket in the process of taking off or landing or in the circuit area of an airfield or helipad?

[helmet fire]

Autorotate: yep, got some speccy shots, but as usual, few were used, and all the tapes recycled! At least you keep yours.

The life Jacket issue is one of those thorny issues, as belly tank has said. Whilst the RFS do not police PPE issues much, some gear (like helmets and nomex) are contractual requirements. Victoria have taken a slightly different view and tend to believe that as the contract authority, they owe duty of care to the contractors, and thus they police these issues more keenly, and as we know, led NSW in their introduction by many years.

I think that lifejackets are up to the PIC and operator. If they think that either there is a legislative requirement OR it is safer to wear one, then they are duty bound to do so. But making them "mandatory" for all water bombing ops is not supportable because it ignores commonsense with such scenarios as BT points out when using bouywalls, and it will just get people offside.

[matador]

As I understand that the main point in this thread was to look for some medical problem for pilots involved in firefighting operations, let me say that IMHO the worst thing about that job talking about health problems is the HEAT. I've found myself many times just about to suffer a blackout when I jump into the cockpit of a "parked under the sun" helicopter and almost burnt hands when grabbing the controls, if you left the helmet in the interior get burnt out ears :\ and then long hours under the heat of the sun at low speed and high TQ settings... you end up sweating and thirsty and some times with no place to rest during refuelling or nothing to eat in long periods .... in one word smoke is not a problem but sometimes I feel miserable :confused: but still one of the jobs I enjoy the most.
Buen vuelo

[Bomber ARIS]

Matador, gracias por su respuesta.

I am also curious to know how helicopter fire fighting in Spain is regulated in terms of flight time and duty. How much flying and duty is one able to get away with?

[matador]

After a wild period of time when everything was within limits, the CAA came out a couple of years ago with new regulations:
Max duty time is 12 hours
Mininum rest time 10 hours
Max flight time in one day is 8 hours
Max endurance of a flight is 2 hours and minimum down time after that is 40 minutes, no hot refueling allowed.
Max duty days in a month is 22 and then 8 days off, well in case the company has a hard time finding pilots you can do 44 and then 14 off, but that only as an exception to the rule.
At the beginning it was hard to explain to the customers the new regulations, but nowadays most of them are quite happy with them.
Buen vuelo

[whopwhop]

Since you people are talking about fire fighting what sort of minimums are roughly needed, also I suppose to get experience one needs to do the usual loitering around hangars or is there another way