OLYMPIA, Wash. — Washington state firefighters are getting help from high-tech eyes in the sky.
The first of two Kodiak K-100s arrived in Olympia last month and has already flown above wildfires on Orcas Island and in Concrete.
They travel faster and fly longer than most of the state’s other aerial firefighting tools, but the selling point for state Chief of Air Operations David Ritchie is the plane’s camera.
“This is going to help those fire teams out there be able to plan out how they’re going to attack those fires,” said Ritchie.
He said the Teledyne Flir camera enables the crew in the plane to send back live images and video of the fire to agency headquarters and incident commanders on the ground below.
In the past, those crews typically relied on cell phone photos, which cannot always be delivered quickly.
The planes cost taxpayers $4.3 million each, but Ritchie said they will pay for themselves by preventing fires from becoming more costly to fight.
”Time is of the essence when we’re engaging fire, the quicker we can get stuff on it, the quicker they’re going to go out,” said Ritchie.
Ritchie said the agency and lawmakers have helped build up the state's aerial firefighting force.
In 2012 he said the state had fewer than a dozen aircraft.
Going into the summer of 2023 the fleet consists of 28, and an additional 14 drones.