Texas ping....
Double damn! Fort Davis and Alpine are among my favorites spots in North America.
40 houses burned here in Midland with no loss of life or injury. Saturday, I walked out the house smelt smoke and looked south to see the whole sky black with smoke.
Every year, when the wildfires hit the western US, I remember how a California airship company designed and planned to build a firefighting airship, but went out of business before they could build a prototype.
Their idea was a good one, that airships have enormous lift, compared to planes and helicopters, and they can also maintain a relative position over an area enough to not just dump their entire load at once, though they could, but to “rain” on a fire area, or an area near a fire, for many minutes, saturating it so much that fire would be halted in its tracks.
Most people worry that the column of heat rising from a fire would harm an airship, but with the exception of a severe firestorm, amounting to a “fire tornado”, this is not the case. In most cases, even so, a heat column could be avoided with the use of an infrared camera.
An airship could likewise land directly on a lake or an open water tank to quickly refill its load, while extra helium was pumped into its skin, then as the water was released, compressors would return the extra helium to tanks.
Typically, such airships have a cruising speed of about 40/mph.
I have family in Alpine and Ft Davis those are the best durn spots in Texas EVER.
Thats why the ranchers NEVER complain about rain in West Texas EVER! cause its gonna get dry one day and stuffs gonna burn.
Prayers to those with properties and animals in the fires’ paths...
The report about the horses twisted my guts...