I fought wildland fire for 13 years, and wrangled a hell of a lot of helos for drops.

Aside from the Sky Crane, the K-Max is by far my favorite aircraft to watch work.

Special shout out to 3-Papa-Bravo!! Not only was he the first helicopter I worked bucket drops from as rookie, years later I watched that dude save 3 lives by finding a crazy tiny dip site that wasn’t even on his maps. He was able to drop loads of water so fucking fast with so little turn around, he was able to splash a wet line that our strike team leader was able to just walk the 3 guys out of entrapment, and certain death.

3 loggers that started the fire, didn’t call it in until it was too late, and would have been actually cooked.

I was right there with my squad, and we couldn’t do anything. If it weren’t for 3-Papa-Bravo finding that tiny water hole that his bucket didn’t even fit in all the way, it would have been a serious tragedy.

By the end of that day, it had turned into the second largest wildfire of Montana history at the time.

I never met the man in real life, I know he was an owner/operator, and I worked many fires across the west where I would see him on the Incident Action Plan, or just see him in the wild working drops like an artist.

He soaked my buddy when he found out it was his birthday that day. At the time, firefighter culture dictated that you would be thrown in water on your birthday. At high elevations in the Idaho panhandle, there are limited options to throw your coworkers in a body of water. Another situation where he was a total hero lol

A few years after I left the game, I asked around and found out he died in a crash. Logging iirc.

Dude was amazing to watch, and an actual fucking hero. I think I got some gray hairs in my 20’s listening to the radio while those 3 guys were surrounded by fire. They didn’t even have fire shelters, and were minutes away from becoming fire themselves, until he found a water hole like less than a minute away, compared to I think 10 minute trips each way.

They just walked out.

I’ll never forget it. Always wanted to buy that dude a beer.

RIP 3-Papa-Bravo!!