On January 2, 2020, the state of New South Wales declared a state of emergency as Australia’s bushfires continued their deadly rampage. The next day the Australian state’s former fire commissioner urged the prime minister to call in back-up. The country needed more fire bombers from North America and Europe.
But one machine already hard at work was the S-64E Air Crane, operated by Oregon-based Erickson Inc. Six of its huge helicopters had been already been dousing the fires that put Australians—and the continent’s indigenous wildlife—at risk.
“Flying against the fires in Australia, we’ve put more hours on the S-64s per week this year than we’ve seen in quite some time,” says Jeff Baxter, Director of Research and Development at Erickson.
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