50th Anniversary of the Birth of Aerial Firefighting
See photos below

On Saturday, August 13, the USFS commemorated the 50th anniversary of the birth of aerial firefighting in Willows, CA. Approximately 500 people came by on a warm day to view the historical exhibits, marvel at the aircraft on display, listen to the speakers - and thank these pioneers for making their lives, homes and property a whole lot safer!

On August 13, 1955, Vance Nolta flew a modified Stearman biplane over the Mendenhall Fire in Mendocino National Forest (MNF) and made 6 water drops. The following year, MNF Fire Control Officer Joe Ely was able to enlist 7 local agricultural operators to convert their biplanes to fire bombers and stationed them at several small airports within easy flight range of key MNF fire danger zones. By 2005, 6 of the original pilots had passed away but FCO Joe Ely and the pilot of Tanker #4, Frank Prentice, were guests of honor at the 50th anniversary ceremony.

	CDF, under the guidance of Dave Wardall, exhibited all three types of aerial assets for a very enthusiastic public - a UH-1H Super Huey helicopter, an air attack OV-10 Bronco observation plane and a modern S2T Tracker air tanker. Gary Hendrickson, son of Harold Hendrickson (who was one of the original 7 pilots), also put on a one-man show.
Photo by Roger Cain

He displayed the "remains" of airtanker #1 (N75081), did a fly-by in his N3N bi-plane and performed a water drop from his SEAT, much to the delight of the crowd. The USFS Region 5 smoke jumpers from Redding performed a demo jump and landed almost exactly on target. Both the CHP and Enloe LifeFlight from Chico brought in helicopters for static display. Greg Greenway, Archivist for MNF, as well as Frank Prentice (with some assistance from Milo Peltzer) displayed a wonderful photo exhibit depicting the evolution of tankers thru their 50 years of history; the USS Hornet Museum displayed Barry Rudolph's airtanker drawings and two models of firefighting airplanes; and AAP sold t-shirts to raise money for the AAP Memorial Fund (Thank You to Gabby Newhart and Nancy Talley).

The EmCee for this event was Jim Fernwood, Supervisor of the Mendocino National Forest. Speakers included Gary Story, a Field Representative for Congressman Wally Herger; Doug Leisz, a retired Associate Chief for the USFS and ground-based eye-witness to the original water drops; Bob Fish, CEO of the USS Hornet Museum and AAP Media Relations person; Frank Prentice, pilot of Tanker #4 in the original MNF Aero Fire Squadron; Cotton Mason, retired CDF Aviation Chief and DynCorp employee; Ray Quintanar, USFS SW Region Director of Fire and Aviation Management and Denny Bungarz, former FCO for MNF and current Glenn County Supervisor. Joe Ely provided a few key remarks and then unveiled the newly refurbished plaque honoring the Pioneers of Aerial Firefighting.

AAP met its target for raising money for the Memorial Fund and even had to take some back orders for the t-shirts, which were provided at substantial discount from HorseDesigns and are available from http://www.shirtsigns.com/airattack/. Another excellent variant on the 50th anniversary t-shirt is available from Kelly Andersson thru http://www.cafepress.com/wildfirenews/102588. There was extensive press coverage in northern California for this commemoration including the Oakland Tribune and Chico Enterprise Record. Everyone associated with this program, public and producer alike, considered it a resounding success.

Plaque at Willows Airport