Wanted: A few good helicopter pilots

Greg Hanscom

Greg Hanscom Jul 1, 2025

Jan 12, 2018

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                <h1>Wanted: A few good helicopter pilots</h1>
                <h2><p>As wildfires raged across Washington this summer, the state’s acting chief helicopter pilot warned that there weren’t enough pilots to keep firefighting choppers in the air, reports the Seattle Times. John Adolphson told senior Department of Natural Resources officials that the shortage was likely due to low wages.</p></h2>
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               <p>By <a href="/author/greg-hanscom-crosscut-com/">Greg Hanscom</a></p> 
              <p><time datetime="2025-02-04T05:00:00-08:00">Jan 12, 2018</time></p>
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            <p>As wildfires raged across Washington this summer, the state’s acting chief helicopter pilot warned that there weren’t <a href="http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/environment/pilot-shortage-idled-some-wildfire-fighting-helicopters-2/?ref=dev.cascadepbs.org">enough pilots to keep firefighting choppers in the air</a>, reports the Seattle Times. John Adolphson told senior Department of Natural Resources officials that the shortage was likely due to low wages. “Whether the shortage hampered the summer’s wildfire battle isn’t easy to gauge,” Joseph O’Sullivan writes in the Times, “but the concerns come as national, state and local firefighting resources have been outstripped by the unprecedented blazes.” Peter Goldmark, state public lands commissioner, <a href="http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/legislature-takes-heat-for-squeezed-fire-budgets/?ref=dev.cascadepbs.org">requested a $4.5 million increase</a> in firefighting funds for this year after the record-setting Carlton Complex fire blew up in the Methow Valley in 2014, but the state legislature gave him only $1.2 million. It’s a tension that is only likely to grow as climate change i<a href="http://crosscut.com/2015/09/when-the-wildfire-season-never-ends/?ref=dev.cascadepbs.org">ncreases the length of fire seasons</a> in our forests.</p>
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As wildfires raged across Washington this summer, the state’s acting chief helicopter pilot warned that there weren’t enough pilots to keep firefighting choppers in the air, reports the Seattle Times. John Adolphson told senior Department of Natural Resources officials that the shortage was likely due to low wages. “Whether the shortage hampered the summer’s wildfire battle isn’t easy to gauge,” Joseph O’Sullivan writes in the Times, “but the concerns come as national, state and local firefighting resources have been outstripped by the unprecedented blazes.” Peter Goldmark, state public lands commissioner, requested a $4.5 million increase in firefighting funds for this year after the record-setting Carlton Complex fire blew up in the Methow Valley in 2014, but the state legislature gave him only $1.2 million. It’s a tension that is only likely to grow as climate change increases the length of fire seasons in our forests.

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By Greg Hanscom

Greg Hanscom is formerly the executive editor of Crosscut and KCTS 9 public television. In his more than two decades as a journalist, Hanscom’s writing has run the gamut from inner-city schools and ur