US Army soldiers assigned to the 12th Combat Aviation Brigade have recently participated in fire prevention training with the US Army Garrison (USAG) Bavaria firefighters in Germany.

Chief Warrant Officer Thomas McNamara said: “We’re going to be picking up the Bambi Buckets over here to practice aerial firefighting. We’ve got the Grafenwöhr firefighters with us. We are going to be co-ordinating with them and practising fighting fires with them on a range in areas that may be inaccessible or too dangerous to get (from) the ground.”

The goal was to time the water drop effectively so the firefighters could easily handle the fire from the ground. McNamara commented: “The bucket is far below the helicopter. It’s just a visual judgment error to be able to bring that bucket and place it over the fire.”

Josef Rodler, Fire Chief at USAG Bavaria, added: “All my firefighters are host nation firefighters. This is the first time (we’ve done) real training with the pilots. Invite them to the next exercise so they can see how we do it and share the experience.”

The exercise will continue to help with fire prevention on USAG Bavaria and the experience gained for the participants of this exercise will continue to pay off.