Bruce Goes On A Helicopter Ride

Covering a firefighting story! Even includes video!:

Pilot Erik Vandagriff of A&P Helicopters heard about the fire and lack of air support, and decided to call Grass Valley Dispatch around midnight.

By 8:30 the next morning, Vandagriff, who lives in Foresthill, was dispatched to the fire after being hired by Cal Fire.

“Cal Fire told us that three tankers on order were diverted to other fires,” Vandagriff said. “There was then no other air support in the area except for us.”

After flying a reconnaissance mission over the Foresthill fire with the Cal Fire commander, Vandagriff then jumped into an MD 500 helicopter and made nearly 300 water bucket drops over the fire. Over a 14-hour period of flying, Vandagriff’s helicopter dropped water from a 108-gallon bucket on the fire, after getting permission to use water from the treatment plant off of Foresthill Road, about one mile from the fire.

If the fire had jumped the bull-dozer line cleared at the top of the hill, “there would have been absolute destruction of the forests there,” Vandagriff said.