Menorca Day 3: Firefighting

More dramatic a sight in large.
Back blip, with extras

After a very windy night, I woke early and went out to photograph the sunrise and swell. A helicopter kept buzzing over, and after about 15 minutes I followed its path inland (i.e. turned my head...) to realise that the sky was full of smoke and the forest was ablaze! It was about 500m away, and resulted in the road out of Arenal being closed, as well as more terrifying a threat to those upwind of the flames. The helicopter dropped water on the flames from a bucket, before flying over to Fornells to collect more seawater... The wind was still up, which whipped up both the spray from the sea, and the smoke and flames in the forest.

What a dramatic morning: I watched the firefighting teams escalating their efforts, with a cropduster plane joining the firefight (sploosh), as well as a second helicopter (which landed on the rough rocks between us and the fire, and had a bucket attached to it), then a pontoon plane (another cropduster, but this one could collect water from Fornells rather than return to the airstrip), and then joined by this impressive seaplane. There was also a spotter plane circling at higher altitude, which I suspect was coordinating the movements of the other aircraft.

The seaplane came in high, circled down over the bay and our villa, before lining up for its first approach to the fire and flying very low over our roof (so low that I felt the downwash from its wings!).

I took far too many photos, but it was fascinating to see the various vehicles doing their thing in such a coordinated manner, and to see the dramatic volumes of water that they poured on the flames. I loved the way that the water expanded outwards when they opened up the planes, the plumes of water that they trailed as they climbed away from the fire (seaplane, pontoon plane, cropduster), and especially the way that the wake of the seaplane kicked up the water behind it. It was also terrifying to see them drop below the brow of the hill to tackle the further of two fires, before reappearing over the brow of the hill action-film-style (pontoon plane, cropduster, seaplane).

We also went to the wetlands at s'Albufera d'es Grau where we saw egrets (hunting and landing), little grebes, dragonflies, and a purple gallinule, amongst others.

Annie blipped about the fire here and here with more info and details.

I've uploaded an album of firefighting photos if you want to see semi-animations of the action (there are several series of shots).
My other Menorca photos can be found on Flickr here.
Day 3 pictures are right from here.