B次元官网网址

Skip to content

Vancouver Island hosts training exercise ahead of coming wildfire season

Firefighters practise entering and exiting a hovering helicopter

Members of the BC Wildfire Service engaged in a helicopter hover-exit exercise at Qualicum Beach Airport on Wednesday, April 3.

The session was a training certfication exercise, conducted every year in preparation for the coming fire season. It involves members learing to enter and exit a helicopter as it hovers above the ground.

B次元官网网址淲e do this every year to recertify for the helicopter operations we need to do on wildfires,B次元官网网址 said TJ Hamre, a forest firefighter for eight years and one of the program trainers.

READ MORE:

READ MORE:

Hamre said those involved are all excited to resume training and assist new recruits.

Last year was the worst fire season on record in British Columbia. Between April 2018 and March 2019 there were 2,112 wildfires, torching 1.3 million hectares of land. Roughly 40 per cent of fires are human-caused each year.

Hamre said the hovering exit training exercise is important as it is always the last resort to get to a remote location when thereB次元官网网址檚 no other option for any sort of landing.

Before the crews and new recruits did the actual exercise, they went through a thorough briefing and held mock entrances and exits.

Michael.Briones@pqbnews.com

Like us on and follow us on  



Michael Briones

About the Author: Michael Briones

I rejoined the PQB B次元官网网址 team in April 2017 from the Comox Valley Echo, having previously covered sports for The NEWS in 1997.
Read more



(or

B次元官网网址

) document.head.appendChild(flippScript); window.flippxp = window.flippxp || {run: []}; window.flippxp.run.push(function() { window.flippxp.registerSlot("#flipp-ux-slot-ssdaw212", "Black Press Media Standard", 1281409, [312035]); }); }