Firefighter Pilot Shares Videos Of Minnesota Wildfire Water Drops

Wildfires continue to rage in Northern Minnesota, on pace to be the costliest wildfires in over 100 years. Firefighting crews have been working tirelessly trying to contain the Munger Shaw, Jenkins Creek, and Camp House fires.

My Facebook feed has been full of people sharing places to donate and how to help. It's great to see the Northland come together and help out.

I've also been seeing a lot of Facebook posts from Earl Watters. He's one of the helicopter pilots with his CH-47 Chinook Helicopter "Boomer."

After a full day of operations, Earl has posted some videos of the work they've been doing. You can see how they pre-treat areas by watering down structures and surrounding areas, trying to save homes. They've saved countless structures already.

Here's a video he shared of a "double drop" for structure protection on the Camp House Fire. You can see that one of the structures was smoking right before his drop.

His chopper, Boomer, can fill up with 2300 gallons in 40 seconds. That's crazy! But, as Earl explains, Boomer has "a drinking problem." The chopper consumes 50 gallons of fuel per minute and has to refuel after about 2 hours of flight time.

He's been one of the first aerial firefighters to start battling these blazes since they started. Here's a video of a drop he did on the Camp House Fire on May 11.

Here's another fun fact about Earl: when not fighting fires, he's an actor/gunfighter at venues in the Southwest, like the Old Tombstone Western Theme Park.

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Here he is performing at the Cider Festival Eaves Movie Ranch in New Mexico.

Talk about having an interesting life?

Thank you, Earl, and all of the other firefighters working tirelessly in Northern Minnesota. Stay safe!