Coulson Provides Night Ops Support to Los Angeles Counties

Southern California Edison leads the way in funding change in aerial fire fighting in Southern California by the introduction of the QUICK RESPONSE FORCE program.

Coulson Aviation is honored to be chosen as the supplier to the Los Angeles Basin Counties “Quick Response Force“ (QRF) program with 24 hour operations, and will have two 3000 USG CH47’s operating between Orange County and LA County, as well as a Sikorsky 1000 USG S-61 in Ventura County.

This aerial firefighting fleet will be supported by their Sikorsky S-76 “FIREWATCH” with wildfire management in the front and intelligence gathering personal in the back, providing key information to County management to help firefighters on the ground.

This will be the first time in history that a Super Heavy lift helicopter will be hover filling at night, and includes the capability of dropping retardant at night. Hover filling was first approved for use by Coulson Aviation by the Australia’s government, who has continued to support the pioneering efforts by Coulson to become the first aerial firefighting company to provide night operations anywhere in the world. This has also marked a significant change in the firefighting industry, as hover filling at night has eliminated the need for aircraft to return to an airport to reload when battling a fire during nighttime.   

Coulson’s commitment to innovation has continued, with their CH-47 Chinook tanks now identical to their C-130 and B737 air tanker SMART tanks. Coulson Aviation can now offer to their worldwide customers air tanker drops at night equally as effective and efficient as their C-130 Hercules or Boeing 737 Fireliner air tankers.

Coulson is humbled to be able to join the LA Basin County teams that lead the way in aerial night operations and look forward to supporting these operations when called upon.

We applaud the Fire Chiefs of these counties for driving change and to the United States Forest Service (USFS) and CALFIRE for their support, allowing night operations across the California land base.