Provider profile: Saab Aerial Firefighting

Fighting fires in Sweden and overseas

MSB holds Saab’s only contract at the current time: “So the gig is really run by MSB,” said Tilander. “Meaning that anywhere they want us to relocate to, regardless of whether that’s for prepositioning or if it is to actually go out and work on a mission, it’s their call. Regardless of whether we’re going just over the hill to the next lake, or whether we’re going to France.”

Saab currently responds to “between 20 and 30” fires per year, Tilander explained, with the annual fire season running between the start of April and the end of October. However, within this figure there is a great deal of variation in terms of mission length, depending on the scale of the fire. “When we say a ‘fire’,” he continued, “that could be a two-hour thing, or it could be three days. It all depends on the magnitude of the fire, and what other services are available.”

Additionally, he suggested that, with some fires, “if the magnitude of it is larger, all four aircraft will be deployed – they usually work in pairs, so depending on how you want to put the statistics, there are some fires that perhaps should be considered two missions [occurring simultaneously]”.

With some fires, if the magnitude of it is larger, all four aircraft will be deployed

International missions

Pär-Olov Carlsson, Accountable Manager and Head of Flight Operations at Saab, added that among those 20–30 missions, there will usually be “one or two international missions per year”, alongside “perhaps one or two” that were planned “but that haven’t ultimately been put in action”.

Such missions are typically arranged by MSB as part of Sweden’s contribution to the European Union’s rescEU initiative – an EU-wide program aimed at coordinating aerial firefighting resources across the bloc. Consequently, Carlsson said, “When it comes to going abroad, we are not always informed [of negotiations] – we just wait for the call from MSB.”

This, in tandem with the greater level of readiness necessary to conduct an international mission, means that Saab has to be “constantly prepared” for an international dispatch, according to Tilander. “We always follow the fire developments, at least in Europe, to see what the fire risks are, and try to be one step ahead,” he explained. “So every day at noon … there’s a quick brief on the status, and where possibly we could be deployed.”

While he acknowledged that crew and aircraft are “usually pretty well taken care of in terms of feeding, sleeping, transportation”, Tilander added that “anything that involves our flight operations is expected to be handled by us”. For example, Saab will typically dispatch more than one pilot to crew each aircraft on an international mission, to ensure that if one is incapacitated they can still fly.

“So there can be a variety of challenges,” he concluded. “And you can plan to an extent, but you also need to keep an open mind.”

Crew

Saab plans to engage 12 individuals as pilots for its four aircraft for the 2024 fire season: “I say for the season, because for the winter we don’t crew up the entire staff – quite a few of them are contractors,” said Tilander.

As a relatively young unit, the company’s aerial firefighting team is always looking to draw on the expertise of foreign fliers

Saab recruits from an international pool of talent – as a relatively young unit, the company’s aerial firefighting team is always looking to draw on the expertise of foreign fliers. “We’ve chosen to go that route to have people come in with the knowledge, and mentor us into it,” he explained.

The pilots come from a range of backgrounds: “We have guys who were pretty much fostered as ag [agricultural] pilots, who have then gone into firefighting,” said Tilander. He added that, while experience in that sector was valuable, “we don’t have a recent history in Scandinavia with that type of operations, because powder flights and ag flying was made illegal in the 1970s”. Other pilots come from military backgrounds, including “ex-fighter pilots”, as well as from airlines.

Despite the range of backgrounds and nationalities on display in Saab’s aerial firefighting crews, Carlsson stated that there was one thing that the company prioritized when recruiting: the ability to work as a team. “It’s very much about personality – of course, qualifications as well – but also the ability to become an important part of a small organization, where everyone has to work together,” he said.

Tilander added: “Our summers will be very busy at times, and then in some other periods, nothing else happens whatsoever – and you need to be able to deal with that without starting to chew on your buddies!”

Scandinavian summer

Sweden may not be as synonymous with wildfires as countries closer to the equator, but the country’s unique climate can still be conducive to large-scale blazes.

“Keep in mind that during the summer we have long days – so compared with the Mediterranean, there are parts where the sun never sets in summer,” said Tilander. Consequently, temperatures can reach heights of 19–24°C (66–75°F) in July across many of the country’s more populated areas, and foliage can become dry – and potentially flammable if a stray spark hits it.

Tilander noted that in Saab’s experience, the spark that lights the flame is typically caused by “three top sources”:

• Railroads – usually in connection with a malfunction of brakes on a train
• Machinery used by the lumber industry
• Thunderstorms.

Of these, the most challenging – or those that produce the most work for Saab, he explained – are the rail-related incidents. “If you have a locked-up brake, it will still keep moving for kilometers,” he said. “You can quickly have a front building up, usually in harsh terrain as well, because railroads don’t follow the terrain as roads do; they tend to go more the shortest way. So it’s remote and it’s hard for ground crews to get there in time.”

Beyond the potential fire risks, summer in the far north also presents potential challenges for Saab’s aerial firefighting team. “The biggest challenge is that the sun never sets,” said Tilander. “That might sound great because you have long days, but the problem is that the sun will go low, but it won’t go down. And the guys that come from further south and haven’t experienced it, they’re really surprised.”

As well as getting in pilots’ eyes, the low summer sun can create long shadows, making it difficult to identify objects on the ground

As well as getting in pilots’ eyes, the low summer sun can create long shadows, making it difficult to identify objects on the ground. “You get big areas that are shaded and you can’t see what’s there,” Tilander explained, adding that while sunglasses and visors have their place, handling the sunlight while flying was a question of careful observation, good communication, and “reminding each other when you go in there”.

Flying into the future

Looking to the future, Carlsson explained that “for the moment”, MSB would continue to be Saab’s only aerial firefighting client – with the primary goal of making sure that operations under that contract were “working smoothly”. However, he said: “If there are other interests in what we do, we as a business will of course look into that.”

Carlsson added that, under the MSB contract, “we have seen an increased use of aircraft in firefighting” – something he attributes in part to a “learning curve” on the part of dispatchers. “We foresee that this will continue for the next few years, because they can now see how we can be used in the best way” – for containment, rather than trying to actively put out fires.

Another significant aim for Saab, Tilander added, was to cultivate Sweden’s native aerial firefighting expertise. “We have our own training facility, we have our own approved training organization (ATO),” he said. “These are things that take time to build to a level where it is sustainable, and I think that is one of the end goals – to develop that further and have that at a sustainable level.”