You are surprised by the sudden sound of its engines when you don’t see it coming, but then you quickly recognize it: its colors, its design, its low flight. A firefighting amphibious airplane is an aircraft that we are all familiar with since they have been around for 50 years.
Few would disagree with the essential role that the team of people who make up the 43 Group of Air Forces of the Spanish Air Force and the Ministry for Ecological Transition, which directs their actions, have been entrusted with. Every year, the Canadair CL215T and Bombardier CL415 carry out firefighting and support missions for the Aerial Rescue Service (SAR) throughout Spain, as well as in countries where their help is requested due to large forest fires: Bulgaria, France, Greece, Israel, Italy, Morocco, and Portugal.
These amphibious planes are highly strategic operational means due to their speed and mobility, allowing them to act wherever needed. Therefore, sometimes their water drops are made for the safety or rescue of ground firefighting teams. Their crews consist of pilots and flight mechanics, recognized professionals whose preparation and effectiveness are noteworthy. Their actions in forest fires, in addition to the material results they produce, also provide hope, encouragement, and security to ground firefighting crews and forces.
I think it is not difficult to agree on the recognition of the protection, conservation, and defense of common goods, which unbelievably some still assume that, since they belong to everyone, they belong to no one and disrespect them without giving them the value they deserve. For over a century, education on this issue has been carried out, and we have made significant progress at the social level because almost no one remains indifferent to a disaster such as a forest fire. However, there is still a long way to go, especially in dismantling the perverse and interested causes that lead so many people and resources to be devoted to fighting fires every year.
The people who fight fires from the sky are good people, I know it firsthand because I worked almost for free with them for a year.
Ernesto Cardoso
| Season 3. Chapter 7 | Amerizaje |
| Recording date | November 2020 |
| Duration | 2:14 minutes |
| Date of issue | April 2,2021 |
| Location | Embalse del Atazar, Comunidad de Madrid. España |
| Image and sound | Ernesto Cardoso |
| edition | Ernesto Cardoso |
| Opusculum | Ernesto Cardoso |
| Music | The Meat Rack |
| Song | Blues, live |
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