Many people reported seeing a helicopter on two separate occasions and wondered why the helicopters were in the area. The reason why the residents were worried wasn’t because of the helicopters, it was what the helicopters were carrying. One was carrying a large bucketandscoopingupwater and the other was carrying a large hoop-type object.
The helicopter carrying the bucket was a Billings Flying Service (BFS) aerial firefighting helicopter. BFS helps fight major fires in the US and overseas, including the horrific ongoing California fires.
BFS buys military chinooks and repurposes them for firefighting. BFS Crew Chief Larry Evans said it was a no-brainer.
“When these helicopters came available and you look at their profile and design, it was just like a no brainer,” Evans said in an interview.
Currently, BFS has seven chinooks in their fleet and hope to have two more approved for service by the end of 2025. Evans said it is a process to commission a helicopter for firefighting service.
Getting them ready, it’s a lot of demilitarization of the airframe itself,” Evans told KXII. “We take all that stuff off, reduce the weight, put the fire suppression system that we need onto it and then we test it, just kind of get it all ready to go.”
BFS is based out of Montana where winters get frigid and makes it difficult for training. Since the company still needs to train new pilots and make sure their current pilots stay sharp, they ship some down to Lake Texoma where the water isn’t frozen. They are housed in a hangar at the North Texas Regional Airport. They use the lake during their training.
“We use the lake to get water from and then we pick usually a small little island out there or a patch of land and that’s our simulated fire line,” Evans said in an interview. “We drop that water like it’s a fire and we practice our precision drops, our coverages, our altitudes, picking up water.”
The chinooks have two methods of distributing the firefighting water: a bucket system or a tank system. The bucket system works just as the name implies; it picks up 2,000 gallons of water in the bucket then dumps the water on the fire.
The tank system is more like a firetruck. The tank in the helicopter houses the water and makes the helicopter fly different.
The second helicopter was doing a geological mapping study. The helicopter was carrying a hula-hoop-shaped sensor. The sensor measures tiny electromagnetic signals that can be used to map features below Earth’s surface.
The company called Sky-TEM did the Agua Geo Frameworks, LLC (study) under an AGE contract. The helicopter was operated by experienced pilots from LiveWire Aviation.
They are specially trained for the low-level flying required for geophysical surveys. SkyTEM works with FAA to ensure the flights are safe and in accordance with U.S. law.