Division Chief, Arnold Romarez. I oversee the Eastern Sierra Division and Owens Valley Camp.

Today, we’re on a fire on Diaz and Brockman. We have a structure fire into the vegetation. We have a packing plant that we wanted to protect on the north side, so we brought in our newly equipped helicopter, a 4 Papa Juliet, that’s a Chinook. It’s a CH-47 Delta, and that ship carries 2800 gallons of water, and it’s here to help protect the Inyo-Mono Counties, for Cal Fire SRA. And, since we had some vegetation with this fire here, we thought we’d help on the north side and  protect that packing plant.

So, we pre-treated. We put three drops in. That helicopter carries 2,800 gallons. Based on temperature and altitude, I assume that it carried about 1,500 to 2,000 gallons, uh, on each drop. And  we’re pretty successful on pre-treating that off-side.

It’s, stationed atMammoth Lakes.   It’s been there for about three weeks, and it should be here through the duration of the summer. So, hopefully, we continue to put the big water on the fires here in the Inyo-Mono Counties and keep everything small.