Another summer fire season is approaching and Northern Air Operations has already started preparing.
This year, 36 pilots are taking part in ground school, which runs from April 7-14 in Prince Albert.
Denis Renaud, the aviation operations director in La Ronge, says most of the pilots are from this area.
Renaud says about 20,000 man-hours of work is done by over 30 engineers, avionics technicians and mechanics to keep the firefighting fleet running throughout the summer.
The number of aircraft in the fleet has not changed this year.
“We’ll be going with six amphibious CL-215 aircraft,” he adds. “We’ll also be going with four Convair 580’s and seven bird-dog planes.”
Renaud says people in the La Ronge area will start to see air tanker and bird-dog plane activity when ground school wraps up.
(PHOTO: A CL-215. Photo courtesy of Saskatchewan Aviation Operations.)