Submitted video: Josh Smith

Quite a few people have written in about the helicopter activity taking place over Arcata today. As noted by the LoCO bots, CalFire is dealing with a little wildfire located in dense forest on Green Diamond property a few miles northeast of Arcata. If it becomes more of an issue, we’ll let you know. 

However, what we found interesting in the video submitted by LoCO friend Josh Smith, above, is that this is the closest we’ve seen CalFire’s slick new firefightin’ whirly bird in action. Back in June, CalFire sent out an announcement that we were getting some new aircraft here locally.

From that release:

We are pleased to announce the Kneeland Helitack Base will now be operating the Sikorsky S70i helicopter.  The S70i, or Fire Hawk, is a replacement for the department’s aging fleet of Bell Huey helicopters.  The new helicopter brings a number of increased safety features and operational capabilities. 

LoCO must confess, CalFire was kind enough to invite us to come look at the S70i when it arrived. We failed to make the party. That’s on us. LoCO is sorry. :(

If you’d allow us to geek out on the S70i a bit: ‘Round these parts we’ve grown accustomed to the helicopters equipped with with the ol’ collapsible buckets you’d go and dip in a body of water before heading off to douse your fiery foe. The S70i handles this process a little more gracefully, in our humble opinion. It features a 1,000-gallon external water tank mounted on its belly. To fill it, it extends its retractable snorkel — hell yeah! — into a nearby body of water and gets to pumpin’. (Video example below.) If this website it to be trusted, the S70i can fill its tank in just 45 seconds. Wowowow.

Anyway, to sum up: Yes, there is a fire burning near Arcata, but we’re going to place our bet on our new chopper with the retractable snorkel. We are strong.

# # #

UPDATE: Reader Johnny Kell sends in even more video of the S70i in action. This clip gives some context to the location of this thing.