Ashland, Ore — The Ashland Municipal Airport may be the future home of a dedicated helicopter base for fighting wildfires.
Commissioners say there are a lot of hurdles to overcome before anything is official.
“Faster response times for sure, getting in and out of here, versus Medford where you’ve got commercial flights to compete with, more traffic in general,” said Ashland Airport Commissioner Andrew Vandenberg.
During fire season, every second counts, that’s why the Ashland Municipal Airport is being considered as a dedicated helicopter base for fighting wildfires.
“Ashland Airport is a small non-towered airport with not a lot of traffic, usually you can get in and out of here pretty fast because you’re not waiting for somebody that’s scheduled or somebody that’s ahead of you,” said Vandernberg.
In meetings, Jackson County Commissioners discussed the idea of two large type-one helicopters stationed at Ashland Airport during fire season.
“The advantage of going out to some of these outlying areas where you don’t have all that population is you could take off with that external load and be quicker on the approach to the fire,” said Dave Larson with the Oregon Department of Forestry.
While the idea is in its most early stages, the Oregon Department of Forestry knows how helpful those helicopters can be, after lightning storms in the middle of July last year.
“We had two helicopters that were assigned to the Klamathon fire that were actually setting in Ashland, they were type-one helicopters and we used those on multiple fires in Jackson and Josephine County,” said Larson.
A type-one helicopter is capable of carrying up to 3000 gallons of water.
ODF is looking at where any new helicopters would be most effective and what type.
“For the fire season you’re looking at probably over a million dollars a year just to have that, if you had 2 type-one helicopters, is that the right mix or would you be better off with 1 type-one helicopter and then for that million dollars have 3 type-2 helicopters and place them in more areas,” said Larson.
Until a decision is made, ODF says they’re preparing for next fire season with the tools they already have.
“Any additional resources you can get is going to help out, when you’re in the fight,” said Larson.
A price tag of around 2 million dollars had been discussed to house the helicopters at Ashland Municipal.
As for who would foot the bill? That’s still to be determined.
The cost of fighting fires state-wide exceeded 500 million dollars in 2018.
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