Aerial Fire Operations
Each fire season (April 1 – October 31st) there are hundreds of forest fires that occur in uncontrolled airspace. The Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (OMNR), Aviation Forest Fire & Emergency Services (AFFES) is committed to supporting safe skies for all private and commercial aircraft operators during all and aerial fire operations. Forest fires can range in size from the very small to very large. In 2011 the largest fire recorded in Ontario history in the last 50 years—Sioux Lookout 70 at 141,000 hectares.
Airspace restriction is automatically established on all active forest fires, as outlined in the Canadian Aviation Regulations C.A.R.s 601.15. The OMNR may also publish specific NOTAMs for individual forest fires. Communications are an essential component of safe skies and the MNR is committed to providing.
Every effort is made by OMNR fire response aircraft to broadcast an advisory on 126.7 & 122.8 MHz. An aircraft can always reach an OMNR Radio Operator by using the forest fire reporting frequency of 122.9MHz.
Reporting a Forest Fire?
Forest fires have varying degrees of complexity involved when OMNR suppression aircraft respond. Everyday of the fire season there is a minimum compliment of 48 rotary and fixed wing aircraft ready to respond to the threat of forest fires. The number of aircraft on hire can increase significantly depending on the number of fire starts, size and complexity. These aircraft perform a wide array of tasks from helibucketing, waterbombing, moving Fire Ranger crews, aerial ignition, fire detection and so on. In and around fires aircraft can be working low level such as a CL 415 waterbomber skimming a lake for a water pick up, or helicopters scouting a fire line and dropping a crew into a beaver pond. Aircraft can also be stacked at various altitudes awaiting instruction from a Birddog, or transecting a fire for other operational duties. The type and operations for MNR suppression aircraft is flexible and very much dependant on the conditions of a forest fire. Fires may exhibit very visible smoke columns and aircraft activity, however once the smoke dies down does not mean the fire is out. There can still be many aircraft working the fire supporting ground crews to put out the remaining hot spots, or scanning a fire perimeter with infrared.
