Home        

Pictures     

Links         

July 4th 2006 finds us still here in New Orleans over 10 months later after hurricane Katrina. One of our ships arrived 4 days after the storm and participated in the evacuation of patients, doctors, and nurses from Tulane and Charity hospitals in downtown New Orleans. The evacuees were taken to hospitals on the North Shore of Lake Pontchartrain. Two days later another Firehawk arrived from Idaho and both aircraft participated in rooftop rescues and evacuation of stranded residents to the New Orleans International airport. We were then tasked by the DOD to participate and provide support to the New Orleans as they tried to keep whole sections of the city from burning after the storm. This mission eventually transferred to FEMA's control and we are still here now providing daily fire fighting support to the New Orleans Fire Department.




 

Our Astar:
In addition to Firehawks we also operate an Eurocopter AS0350 B3 Astar, which is presently on an exclusive use contract with the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) based in Tooele, Utah. It provides fire suppression and support for the are around and to the West of the Salt Lake City and The Great Salt Lake area.

















 

This picture was taken as our aircraft helped the New Orleans Fire Department fight a fire on the Orange Street Wharf just south east of downtown on the Mississippi River. The fire was set by a cutting torch as a construction worker was working on the building. There were five fire boats, the bulk of the City's fire Department, and our two helicopters. Each helicopter dropped over a 100 buckets in a little under 4 hours delivering over 160,000 Gallons of water on the fire.

Photo Credit: David Armstrong