NY Army Guard helicopter crews, DEC Rangers team up for helicopter firefighting training in Capital Region

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A New York Army National Guard UH-60M Black Hawk helicopter carries a water bucket during a joint training exercise at Fahnestock State Park, New York, April 23, 2025.

LATHAM, NY (05/06/2025) (readMedia)-- New York Army National Guard helicopter crews based will conduct firefighting training along the Hudson River near Schuylerville on May 7 and 8.

If there are weather delays, the training will extend to Friday, May 9.

The Army aviators include those crews for the CH-47 Chinook heavy lift helicopters based at Army Aviation Support Facility #2 in Rochester and the UH-60M Black Hawk crews based at the Army Aviation Support Facility #3 in Latham. The two types of flight crews will team up for training with 14 Department of Environmental Conservation Forest Rangers.

The helicopters will practice lifting water from the river and then dumping it on simulated targets.

The Army National Guard aviators and Rangers taking part in the training using two UH-60M Black Hawk helicopters and a CH-47F Chinook. They expect to fly after 11 a.m. each day.

During firefighting operations, the Army National Guard aircrews work with Rangers on the ground, and sometimes a Ranger in the aircraft. They work together to guide the Army Guard pilots onto the target.

The helicopters will stage from a local civilian airfield near Schuylerville and will likely be visible to the local community.

The helicopter crews and Rangers will train to drop water from 660-gallon Bambi Buckets.

The collapsible buckets are hung underneath the helicopters. Each spring, Army National Guard helicopter crew members and maintenance personnel retrain on how to attach the buckets to the aircraft and then practice picking up water and dumping it.

The training is necessary because a bucket full of water weighs two tons, and helicopter pilots need to practice flying with that additional weight hanging under their aircraft to fly safely in an emergency.

The New York Army National Guard employs helicopter firefighting equipment when local agencies request support through the New York State Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Services.

On March 8, three UH-60M Black Hawk helicopters from Ronkonkoma worked together with a U.S. Air National Guard HH-60W Jolly Green II rescue helicopter to extinguish fires in the Long Island Pine Barrens near the East Fork.

Last fall, New York Army National Guard aviators dropped 550,160 gallons of water on the 5,200-acre Jennings Creek fire in Delaware County between November 11 and 20, 2024, to bring the blaze under control.

Both UH-60 M Black Hawk helicopters and Ch-47F Chinook heavy lift helicopters worked with firefighters to extinguish the blaze.

New York State Police helicopters provide initial firefighting capabilities for the state. The Army National Guard helicopters, which carry a bigger bucket, and are called in for heavier fires.