ARIZONA — A hot summer day greets Tucson, Ariz., as the Coronado National Forest helibase crew gears up for a demonstration. The first step is a safety briefing, where conditions such as weather, temperature and crew energy are assessed. Once the safety check is complete, the pilot, spotter and two crew members put on their flight gear.

As the demonstration is radioed to Tucson dispatch, the pilot and spotter enter the cockpit and the AS350-B3 helicopter takes flight. The pilot maneuvers the helicopter, circling back to the landing pad where they hover above and slowly lower a fixed line to the waiting helitack crew members, Meagan Bieber and Andrey Cubillas. Radio communications are constant during the entire demonstration. The crew strap themselves in and are lifted high into the sunny Tucson sky by the bright yellow helicopter. They are carried in a large circle and then carefully lowered back to the ground.

The demonstration is complete once the helicopter is resting on the helipad and all crew members are back in the hangar. The method demonstrated is called short-haul.

USDA Forest Service launched a short-haul program in 2015 to ensure that injured wildland firefighters working in remote areas could be transported to medical care safely and efficiently. Historically, the Forest Service has used contractors, cooperators and the military to provide emergency medical extraction capabilities.

In 2016, the Coronado began training to equip firefighters in emergency medical short-haul. It involves crews using helicopters to transport one or more people suspended on a fixed line beneath the helicopter and lowering the trained personnel into an area where they can perform actions such as wildfire suppression or emergency medical response. The Forest Service can use short-haul the same way emergency response personnel can, to rescue injured people and transport them to medical facilities. The Coronado is one of only five Forest Service helitack crews in the nation with short-haul capabilities.

Short-haul can also be used when hand crews are unable to safely access a fire line to transport the fire and fuel team members to the proper locations and allow them to create fire lines, remove vegetation and prevent a fire from spreading. Helitack crews land near a wildfire or, if equipped and trained, rappel from a hovering helicopter. Once on the ground, crews build firelines using hand tools, chainsaws or other firefighting tools, and often remain overnight in remote locations.

While the height of the Coronado National Forests fire season generally occurs late spring to early summer, and then again during the monsoons, wildfires can occur at any time of the year. During slow periods, the Coronado National Forest sends its helitack crew to support other national forests and grasslands. Wherever their missions occur, the Coronado National Forest helitack crew is ready to transport equipment or supplies or land in rough terrain to create fire breaks which help slow the spread of a wildfire.

The Wildfire Crisis Strategy is a top priority across the agency and across the country. The Coronado National Forest Fire Management Staff is responsible for managing 1,780,000 acres in southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico. The use of prescribed fire is crucial to the Wildfire Crisis Strategy, and short-haul can help crews perform these prescriptions in hard-to-reach areas, mitigating the risk of future catastrophic wildfires.