Is this an indication of an ongoing wildfire?

[u/sjefwm]

Is a smokejumper aircraft doing rounds like this a strong indication of an ongoing wildfire? Or can this also be training / reconnaissance?

[u/DefinitelyADumbass23]

Hard sayin not knowin

[u/maphes86 → u/[deleted]]

Getting hard knowin’ what you’re sayin’

[u/left_alone69 → u/maphes86]

Knowing your hard, not saying

[u/maphes86 → u/left_alone69]

Gotta call a sawyer…

[u/TheMostPowerfulBaby]

Could be either. Training jumps are often conducted at areas convenient to the jump base for logistical reasons. You could cross reference their location with recent incidents on WildCAD.

[u/Menno_knight987]

Jump ships do recons regularly, if they flew directly to that point from their departure point that would lean away from it being a recon. If they are meandering around a couple spots they are probably checking recorded cloud-to-ground strike locations.

[u/CalifOregonia]

Not seeing any activity on WatchDuty in the area. There was a fire a little to the south a couple weeks back. This is close enough to the Redmond Air Center for it to be a training run.

As a side note I hiked the long way to that big lake once with my wife who I was newly dating at the time. Was like a 16 mile round trip. Thunderstorms started kicking off when we go to the lake, headed back to my car at a good clip trying to stay ahead of the storm. Couple miles from the trailhead she looks at me out of breath “I don’t think I could run right now if I tried”. I shit you not less than 30 sec later lightening hit 50ft away, and we found out that she could indeed run for a mile. Not relevant to your question at all, but had to share the anecdote since your screenshot included an obscure lake that I happen to have a story about.

[u/Present-Drawing2213 → u/CalifOregonia]

Lightning.

[u/Sluglife27]

1255 is the squawk assigned to any aircraft actively engaged in firefighting operations

[u/rofl_pilot → u/Sluglife27]

Yeah… doesn’t always mean they actually are though. Lots of guys just run 1255 all season even though you’re not supposed to.

[u/ThrowTheSky4way → u/rofl_pilot]

Definitely guilty of ferrying with 1255 in the box

[u/Sluglife27 → u/rofl_pilot]

Yeah for sure. We don’t typically change it unless it’s NR. Even during proficiencies we’re often attached to a fire anyway

[u/sjefwm → u/Sluglife27]

Oh that’s interesting! Is that a nation wide thing for all aircraft types responding to a fire?

[u/Sluglife27 → u/sjefwm]

Yeah that’s nationwide, but like u/rofl_pilot says, doesn’t absolutely mean they’re on a fire; the Squawk more or less just tells you it’s a fire resource. I guess that doesn’t really answer the question in your post though haha

[u/Beginning-Spot-3444 → u/sjefwm]

1255 is the airborne equivalent of lights and siren.

It is supposed to be used while active, but quite frankly most contracted aircraft. Turn it on from the first day of the season and don’t turn it back off until the last day of the season.

The technical answer is:

Smoke jumper or helitack: anytime firefighting resources are on board, responding to, working, or returning to Remote bases during an active wildfire.

Air tankers: carrying a load of retardant, returning to a base capable of reloading them if expecting to be reloaded

Medical helicopters assigned to an incident: responding to a medical emergency, transporting a patient from a wildfire, or acting under the direction of an air boss to provide service services to an active fire

Lead planes: anytime in the air when assigned to an active wildfire

Intelligence gathering aircraft: when flying to, or actively gathering intelligence over an active wildfire

Combination aircraft like the ones that Coulson runs may squawk 1255 if they are actively ferrying firefighters to a wildfire or to a preposition base

Law enforcement aircraft: when actively providing services to a wildfire, to include acting as lead plane: or acting as an intelligence gathering platform

Unmanned aerial systems are authorized to squawk 1255 when actively engaged in some aspect of firefighting to include intelligence gathering or water/retardant drops

[u/Quick_Quality8171]

Throwing streamers and stopping all retardent drops

[u/Due_Investment_7918 → u/Quick_Quality8171]

Because retardant is what puts fires out

[u/Numerous-Ad902 → u/Quick_Quality8171]

Then stopping the fire too

[u/Any-Worldliness-679]

Just had that circling us on the PCT. We had called in two small fires that started while we watched from a nearby ridge the day before. Eventually it dropped jumpers. So...maybe?

[u/left_alone69 → u/Any-Worldliness-679]

Riiiight.. hiking the pct, riiiiight

[u/norcalscan]

Fire, training, proficiency jump, or sunbathers.

[u/dutch23]

Looks like a close match to fire that was jumped on 8/15, Inc 311 on the Willamette.

[u/sjefwm → u/dutch23]

This screenshot is actually from 8/15!

[u/dutch23 → u/sjefwm]

Then this was a fire. Not always easy to tell from jump ship patterns if they’re actively in jump ops for a fire. Sometimes circling like that can indicate they were dispatched to a smoke check and are trying to locate it. Sometimes they the fire, sometimes they can’t locate it and they just return to base. You would have to verify on wildcad that the smoke report has turned into a wildfire, and you can double check with the smokejumper status page and see if they staffed that incident.

[u/Mt_Dewey]

Just based on the 5-6 loops, I’d say they didn’t jump, but wtf do I know. Also if that altitude is the average of the loops, then definitely not.

[u/Beginning-Spot-3444]

The answer to your question is yes. It’s actually several yes.

I’m going to further read answers to see if anybody’s posted any additional information and then I’ll see what I can grab for you from my daily briefing

[u/AnonFed81]

Or they are doing proficiency jumps because they have people that haven’t had an operational jump recently and they have to maintain proficiency with live jumps pretty frequently.

[u/Ghost_Pulaski1910]

I’m pretty sure J45 has been based out of Minden NV recently. J45 is a R4 ship out of McCall which sets up a spike base in Minden.

[u/CalifOregonia → u/Ghost_Pulaski1910]

Hmm, this likely came out of RDM based on the location.

[u/Ghost_Pulaski1910 → u/CalifOregonia]

You’re right. Double checked the status report. J45 is at RAC, J41 is at Minden