How Wyoming pulled victory from ashes

From Bill Alber's chopper seat, it looked like a war zone, except the fight wasn't over enemy territory: It was about million-dollar homes and saving lives.

At one point, as many as 10 helicopters and tanker planes dipped and darted in tight proximity over the ponderosa pine near Jackson Hole, Wyo. They maneuvered through 40 mile-per-hour winds. They plunged through smoke as thick as a pillow.

With each pass, they dropped their water and Kool-Aid-colored fire retardant in a methodical attempt to quench one of the hottest conflagrations of the summer.

"This was the most intense [firefight] flying in my life," says Mr. Albers, a chopper pilot for 20 years.

Three weeks ago, four firefighters perished in the deadliest battle, for US wildland fire crews, since 1993.

But last week the men and women who wear Nomex suits and fly "heli-tankers" achieved a rare victory in the enduring fight against one of nature's most primal forces.

The tally here in the end: No lives lost. No homes destroyed.

The tale of the Green Knoll fire in western Wyoming, in fact, provides a window into the fine line between heroism and peril that often accompanies the nation's wildland firefighters - particularly, in this case, those who fought the blaze from the sky.

"Everyday was pretty wild," says Waili Simon, a 32-year pilot from Hawaii. "The fire was in everyone's backyards. We were all scrambling to put it out."

From the start, it was clear the "air attack" portion of the effort was going to be crucial. The fire was located in a corner of the Jackson Hole valley.

It was tight enough and the fire so hot - 1,500 degrees - that it was difficult to get on-the-ground firefighters in front of the blaze.

And that was important: From the moment the fire was ignited by an errant campfire, it started moving toward homes in the scenic mountain community - many of them pricey enough to help the Jackson Hole area earn its moniker as the Aspen of Wyoming.

By the time the first helicopter and air-tanker crews arrived at the scene, the fire was advancing at 200 acres per hour. It had already charred 1,100 acres.

Aerial crews were up within an hour. Over the next seven days, they would drop their watery ordnance eight hours a day.

At one point, firefighters thought they had only a 50-50 chance of saving some 100 homes in the area. Mr. Simon, who flies a Sikorsky "Sky Crane" helicopter that can drop 2,400 gallons at a time, says the choppers were "flying very aggressively - low and fast to the fire. The winds were squirrely and fast and the fire was moving."

He was operating one of 12 helicopters used in the blaze. All the fliers are private pilots who contract with the Forest Service to fight fires. Many of them have military-flying experience.

That day the firefighters accomplished what many were afraid to hope for during the battle: Not a single home was burned.

Often, wildfires do not have nearly the amount of firefighting aircraft that were present on the Green Knoll fire. "Last year, during fires in Montana, I was the only pilot trying to save 60 homes," says Simon, noting that the conflagration there covered a much larger area. "I was able to save three."

The reason the fire in Jackson Hole was able to marshal so many aircraft and other resources was partly a matter of serendipity.

At the time it broke out July 22, there were no other major fires nationally. So all resources were focused on Wyoming. The fire here also immediately threatened homes, including some of the rich.

Eventually, some 1,369 people were brought in to fight the blaze on the ground and in the sky.

"It was a very difficult fire," says Mr. Albers, a full-time firefighter who travels as far away as Australia to battle blazes from the air. "The fact that there was zero home loss is amazing. I thought we would lose four or five."

Albers credits excellent fire management and smooth coordination of the air attack. His copilot, Jesus Velasquez of Peru, agrees. He calls the seventh day of the firefight "the most intense day of my flying experience." The tension, though, was balanced with success. "It was a great feeling to save homes" he says.

Fire commanders do everything they can to reduce the danger to the pilots. But the conditions are almost always perilous: Besides the plumes they have to fly through, smoke often fills the cockpits and the temperatures in the planes usually top 100 degrees.

In this case, too, crews had to set up the equivalent of a moving airport in the sky. Rick Dunlap, who directed air operations for the Green Knoll fire, says this blaze was unique because of the number of "aircraft in this tight a space." The air attack was effective, but "the stress was huge," he says.

In the end, the fire, now largely contained, caused some $8 million in damage. At its most intense, 12 helicopters, 14 air tanker airplanes, 33 water engines, and 800 firefighters on the ground attacked the 4,470-acre fire.

Most of the residents in the area who were evacuated have returned to their homes. As for the flying firefighters, they're taking a brief respite before the next call over what's likely to be a long, hot summer.