PHOTOS: In the case of a real wildfire, the smoke wouldn’t have been red, the portable reservoir wouldn’t have been blown over by a wind gust from a helicopter (hopefully) and the firefighters on the ground would likely have been hidden by the trees.
Still, a training exercise gave plenty of real-world experience to Connecticut Army National Gard members and Westover Air Reserve Base firefighters who joined together for the first time this week to practice dropping buckets of water from helicopters. “This is by far, according to everyone I’ve spoken to, the best way we can do the training,” said Capt. Marc Winchester of Connecticut’s 1-169th Aviation Regiment. “Doing it in conjunction with the firefighters has brought the training to a whole new level.”