New Tool Available to Fight Bay Area Wildfires
SAN JOSE, Calif. (KCBS) - A new safety measure is in place for battling Bay Area wildfires. The water-filled buckets we've gotten used to seeing dangling from helicopters are being retired.
With temperatures risking and humidity dropping, Bay Area firefighters expect to be putting this new aerial firefighting to device sooner rather than later.
Gone from the Silicon Valley Cal Fire's arsenal are the collapsible buckets that are typically dipped into lakes and reservoirs. Helicopter 106, as its known in the firefighting community, will now be able to carry a larger supply of water. "The mechanism itself starts getting dirty and doesn't completely close, and it inadvertently falls off," pilot Jerry Bonner said of the old "bambi buckets," as they're known.
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"It's not a good thing to be flying over people, houses, cars, with the external load. And this is a lot safer," he said of the new, stationary device.
