Gearing up in the sky for wildfire season

Cal Fire is gearing up for the upcoming fire season. The Hollister Air Attack Base is now open and ready to respond to fires from now until at least Oct. 31.

On Monday, two planes flew in from Cal Fire’s maintenance hub at McClellan Airfield in Sacramento, with another on the way. Of the three aircraft, two are S-2T air tankers, which hold up to 1,200 gallons of fire retardant.

Three planes is a step up from last year.

“With the loss of Tanker 81 a few years ago, we had one tanker here last year and we supplemented it with one as we could,” Cal Fire Battalion Chief Joshua Nettles said. “With the fire responses this year, they’re giving us two S-2T air tankers, 100 percent assigned to the Hollister Air Attack Base so we can help fight the fires in this area a lot quicker and a lot faster.”

There’s also an OV-10 Bronco, a command and control aircraft where an air attack officer can coordinate with ground resources.

The Hollister Air Attack has a lot of ground to cover – as far north as Mt. Diablo, down south to King City, west to the Pacific Ocean and as east as Interstate 5. That’s 11 counties.

And because the forecast shows this year could be just as bad as last, Cal Fire is upping the manpower. Twenty new firefighters have been hired for the San Benito-Monterey unit.

Four of the firefighters are new to the Hollister Air Attack Base.

“Whenever an airplane comes in and there’s tone coming over, we’re out here with quick pace, getting out there, taking care of our responsibilities,” Andrew Bullard said.

All of this is in hopes they won’t see a year as devastating as previous ones. But unlike last year, recent storms have helped fill up local reservoirs and ponds, so pilots won’t have to fly as far to find water for now.