Ground staff played key role

Uttarakhand fire

First person account

Sonu Singh,

India 24x7 correspondent

On Monday, the first sortie of the Indian Air Force (IAF) Mi-17 V5 helicopter was scheduled to begin at 6.30am from the base camp located near Srinagar dam in Pauri. In theory, it sounded simple. The IAF personnel had to fly the chopper towards the reservoir of Srinagar dam and fill its Bambi bucket, slung under it, with 5,000 litres of water, manoeuvre it over the hilly terrain and spray it on the steady fire burning underneath. It was easier said than done.

The chopper could not begin operations before 11.30 am due to plumes of smoke and low visibility. The chopper finally took off around 11.35 am and headed towards the Srinagar dam's reservoir to fill up the Bambi bucket as it needs still water. Once it was filled to the brim, the chopper began moving towards the fires in the region. This was the most difficult aspect of the entire operation as visibility was restricted with the smoke billowing upwards from the blaze below and to add to it, the weather has been unusually warm in the past few days.

The poor visibility meant that the IAF personnel could not really locate the exact fires before spraying water from the bucket and the chopper's weight made it difficult to swerve quickly. A single sortie was time consuming as it took nearly an hour. In one hour, the chopper could make two trips to the reservoir to the fill up the Bambi bucket for dousing the fires and in a day, it made five to six such sorties. At best, the chopper operations were an assistance in the fire-fighting operations and not the mainstay. It was the ground staff that was more effective in dousing fires as the heavy smoke and weather conditions affected aerial operations.

—As told to dna correspondent