Minden's Heroic Firebombers

Minden's Heroic Firebombers

Graceful as a swan, the huge airplane swoops down on a ridge of flaming pine trees. A stream of bright red material flows behind as the craft quickly drops its cargo, leveling out ahead of the flames before climbing back to safer air space above the fire.

The firebomber, also called an air tanker, is based for part of the summer in Minden, Nev., (pop. 2,836) just south of Carson City. The plane is a DC-4/C54, built in 1944 by Douglas Aircraft. It flew during the Berlin Airlift in 1948 and belonged to the U.S. Navy until the 1970s.

Today, the craft is outfitted for firefighting, flying around the country during hot, dry summer weather, when wildfires are common. Inside the DC-4’s belly, a huge “hopper” holds 2,000 gallons of a bright red mixture of fire-retardant phosphates, clay, and water. In 2001, drought conditions made the western United States a tinderbox, and the firebombers had one of their busiest seasons.

During the season, the plane and its crew wait for fire calls. In a matter of minutes, they can be in the sky, heading toward another blaze. When they first arrive, retardant is dropped ahead of the flames in hopes of slowing the fire and knocking down its reach. Firefighters on the ground then move in to control it.

The crew, captain Matt Ziomek and co-pilot Will Hollenbeck, fly because they love it. Ziomek owns the plane and has been piloting it for 15 years. Hollenbeck, a teacher during the winter at Embry-Riddle University in Prescott, Ariz., has been flying the DC-4 since 1995 and says it’s his dream job. “There are more openings to be an NFL football player than there are to be a tanker pilot,” another captain told him.

“It’s very hard (for people with families),” Hollenbeck says. “We work six days a week, 12 to 14 hours a day, and there’s no guarantee we’re going to be home at night. We keep two weeks worth of clothes on the airplane. Every morning when we leave the house, we leave like we’re not going to be home for a month.

“We’re a public aircraft and a national resource,” Hollenbeck continues. “If there’s a fire in Montana that’s calling for air tankers, they start pulling the closest aircraft. Since we’ve been in Minden, we’ve spent a month in Florida, a weekend in Oregon, and close to a month in Battle Mountain (Nevada).”

Only 44 of these vintage aircraft still fly around the country as air tankers. Because the fire season starts earlier on the East Coast, the men usually fly there first, gradually moving westward as the season “heats” up. Their contracts, issued by the U.S. Forest Service on a national basis, normally run from April 1 to Oct.1, but if the fire season is especially bad, contracts can be extended.

No day is typical for plane and crew. Sometimes they clean and polish the plane or work on the engines and wait. But when a fire call comes, all are in action.

“There have been times I have crawled on this airplane at 9 o’clock in the morning and not stepped off it until 7 o’clock that night,” Hollenbeck says. But the gleam in his eye reveals the love for his job and the ancient plane he flies.

The men and women who fly these vintage aircraft save countless firefighters and homes every season while placing their own lives on the line. During 2001, two tanker pilots lost their lives in California, and the crew of a helicopter was lost fighting a fire in Wyoming’s Yellowstone National Park.

A cross between firemen and stunt pilots, the firebombers of Minden routinely place themselves in the direct path of danger—and come away heroes.

Sherril Steele-Carlin is a frequent contributor to American Profile.

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