State fire chiefs knew this summer would be a monster on July 9, when dry lightning sparked at least 20 fires across the Western Slope.
Many fires were extinguished before turning destructive. Several, like the Turner Gulch Fire near Grand Junction and South Rim Fire at Black Canyon of the Gunnison, burned for weeks, consuming tens of thousands of acres.
But one of the state’s most expensive pieces of firefighting equipment missed it all. The Firehawk helicopter, worth $24 million, was sitting in a hanger for scheduled maintenance.
“When we talk aviation resources, they are highly valuable, but they are also highly complex with a high amount of risk,” Vaughn Jones, chief of the state wildland fire management division, tells Krystal 93. “Maintenance is very detailed, very intricate, and when aircraft like the Firehawk are due for regular maintenance we are not going to skip on that or put it off.”
Jones chalks it up to bad timing. But timing, he says, will not be an issue this fall. The state has a simple solution – it bought another Firehawk.
“It will be ready sometime this fall to support efforts as needed,” Jones says of the new chopper, dubbed Firehawk 2. “As we speak, we are going through pilot training, crew familiarization, system testing, those things.”
Jones gives the analogy of a used car lot, where you see, test and drive away. But the Firehawk is more like a custom racecar. This highly specialized Sikorsky helicopter is shipped from overseas, and then modified by a Colorado company to carry up to 1,000 gallons of water. It looks like a chopper, but it works like a slurry bomber, and having two is a great insurance policy.
“This fall, and into 2026, we will have that second Firehawk, so if one of them has to stand down for maintenance we’re going to have more aircraft available,” Jones says. “We won’t just rely on one piece of aircraft.”
Ever since that maintenance hiccup in July, Jones believes Firehawk 1 has been making a difference in the worst fire season since 2020, during one of the driest summers on record.
“This fire season, to me, proves the value of that aircraft,” Vaught says. “It was over on the West Slope, and it was used a lot on those fires. It proves the versatility we have, moving our resources where the fires are occurring, or based on fire potential looking ahead.”
When Firehawk 2 comes online there will be eight aircraft in the state firefighting fleet, including two helicopters, one large slurry tankers, two smaller tankers and two “multi-mission aircraft” for spotting and intelligence.
“We’re trying to increase our capacity to support those smaller counties and fire districts,” Jones says. “They are the ones on that initial, out-the-door response. We are there to limit the duration, the impact and the cost (of a wildfire), and our role as the state is to provide those resources local governments don’t have.”