Attacking a fire from the air is a completely new experience of radio monitoring and photographing. The coordination it takes to run the air show is remarkable and great to listen to over the radio. Anywhere in the state of California, firefighting aircraft can reach a fire within 20 minutes. That is a plus for CA because it can take an hour before the first engine can arrive on scene. While air attack bases scatter across the state, helitack bases are placed in strategic spots as well. Most of the time a helitack base is placed in between air attack bases to shorten the response time to the area.
When the call goes out for aircraft, the air attack bases scramble like an air force base. Pilots run to the planes, retardant mixers run to the tanks, and the ground crew helps taxi the plane out of the loading bays and onto the taxi way. The airport by this time should have shutdown temporarily as the firefighting aircraft have right of way. If you're lucky enough to know the backroads around the airport you can usually sit at the end of the runway and get a good rush as the planen lumbers overhead, just inches above the powerlines. (You can do this at Redding)
The helicopter will sometimes get there first just before the air attack plane. This gives the copter time to assess the scene and get the report back to dispatch before landing, dropping of the crew of firefighters and hooking up the bucket - ready to start attacking. By the time they get back in the air, air attack is usually overhead - reassessing the scene and directing the tankers about 5 minutes out. Air Attack will establish what the elevations of the tanker orbit will be and his own orbit, figure out the winds and weather and what the outlook of the fire will most likely be. The helicopter will find a water source called "the pond" and start attacking the head of the fire directly with water to cool it down. Then, when resources arrive on scene and tankers start to flank out the fire the helicopter will move into the smaller spots and pick up the hot spots on the edges and any spot fires ahead of the main fire. This way they stay out of the tanker's way.
Once the tankers arrive on scene they will establish an orbit where air attack puts them and they start getting the overlay of the fire; learning the locations of powerlines, canyons, up and downdrafts and the fire behavior. After they receive the goals and objectives of fighting the fire the air attack will direct the tankers to do their thing.
As the tankers are used and emptied, the air attack will direct them to the nearest air base for fuel and retardant. Over the radio you will hear a "load and return" to have the tankers return or "load and hold" if they want the tankers not to return. Unless the fire is ripping and roaring - tankers are usually returned to base and told to standby incase the fire gets going again.