Mendocino Air Tanker Squad

The Mendocino Air Tanker Squad (MATS) is a flying fire fighting team working to protect the Mendocino National Forest. Joseph Bolles Ely, the Fire Control Officer formed it In 1956.

History
The impetus for this unit occurred on July 9, 1953, when fifteen men were killed while fighting the Rattlesnake Fire, in the Alder Springs area of the Mendocino National Forest. The tragedy prompted forester to look for better ways of fighting fires. Joseph Ely was fighting a fire in the Angeles National Forest at the time of the Rattlesnake Fire. According to his son Frank, Joe became passionate about making firefighting safer for his men. The idea of dropping water from airplanes had been considered for many years and but no experiments had led to the regular use of airplanes to drop water. Ely had the idea to use agriculture pilots who were adept at spraying liquids over crops. He approached Floyd H. Nolta, already an experienced and innovative agriculture and stunt pilot. Within one week, Nolta cut a hole in the bottom of his Boeing-Stearman 75 bi-plane and installed a 160-gallon tank with a hinged gate, a snap, and a pull. His brother Vance flew the plane over a controlled burn in a demonstration with Ely later documenting the moment, “…Vance came over low and pulled the rope and put out the fire. The air tanker was born."

On August 13, 1955, Nolta dropped water to assist a crew on the Mendenhall Fire in the Mendocino National Forest. The Noltas, along with their brother Dale, assisted the Forest Service with other fires that season. In August, Ely conducted a series of tests comparing the effectiveness of water and retardant drops, utilizing Willows Airport and a location in the mountains of the Mendocino National Forest as the drop zones. Ely used that study to establish the parameters of deploying those substances for fighting fires. Advances in logistics and techniques came quickly. The Forest Service learned to stage a water tender at a gravel or dirt strip near the fire so the planes could quickly reload. Other pilots expressed an interest in becoming aerial firefighters. Ely later recalled, “Local pilots were quick to respond. Ag pilots were the last of the silk-scarf and leather-helmet boys and they would try anything that was exciting.”  During the winter of 1955-56, Ely garnered support from the Forest Service regional office in San Francisco, including $4,000 to pay pilots for stand-by time. Eight ag pilots from the Willows area formed the Mendocino Air Tanker Squadron (MATS). In addition to Floyd,Vance and Dale Nolta, other early pilots were Harold Hendrickson and Frank Prentice of Willows, Ray Varney of Artois (Glenn County), L. H. McCurley of Corning (Tehama County), and Warren Bullock of Red Bluff (Tehama County). Willows Airport manager Lee Sherwood, who also owned an ag flying service, flew Ely or other Forest Service officers in an observation plane, referred to as the “Bird Dog.” The “Aerial Firewagons” were Boeing-Stearman Model 75 and Navy N3N biplanes.

The squadron was based at the Willows-Glenn County Airport and operated out of Corning and Red Bluff as well to shorten the initial response times. At times, planes were dispatched to remote airfields to stand by during the day and returned to Willows in the evening.

On July 12, 1956, three years and three days after the deadly Rattlesnake Fire, a letter was sent to the sixteen other national forests in California, as well as the California Division of Forestry (CalFire) stating, “Seven air tankers will be available for aerial assistance in fire control in the Northern California area during the months of August and September 1956… They will operate out of home airports at Willows, Corning and Red Bluff and are available to any fire control unit that wants them.”

Ag flying involves accurate flying low over the terrain to properly disperse seed or liquid in large flat areas where the only obstacles are trees and power lines. Drops over forest fires requires passes deep in canyons or above high ridges, everchanging treetop heights, smoke-filled air, and rapidly changing air currents. An N3N weighs about 2000 pounds, so dropping a load of water results in an immediate fifty percent decrease in weight. The rapid rise was used to clear an approaching ridge or tree line. The original pilots learned how to fly in these conditions.

Water drops were used to make it safer for ground crews. On hot days, even dropped at fifty feet, much of the water evaporated before it hit the ground, so the pilots chose to fly at five to ten feet above the treetops. The Forest Service wanted a safety margin of seventy-five feet above the trees.

The solution was to mix water with sodium calcium borate, producing a compound that made it to the ground with a melting point twice as high as the 900 degree ignition point of a forest fire. The white material stuck to brush and reflected heat, so it was employed on the flanks of fires to control spread. Sodium calcium borate was only utilized for a short time because, although it was white when it dropped, it quickly blended in with the vegetation so they could not see where it had been deployed. Borate also sterilized the soil so other compounds were found. The “Borate Bombers” nickname stuck.

The Forest Service required that retardants, “had to be viscous and bright colored in order to use prior drops as a reference point, still provide fireproofing up to three days after being dropped and contain fertilizer to promote regrowth.” Those requirements led to compounds such as bentonite, a clay that swelled up and stuck better, and sometimes came down in a chunk instead of a spray. By the 1960s, a diammonium phosphate retardant was preferred.

The thick slurry of water and retardants were slow to load into the planes, so Joe Ely found another solution with Wim Lely of Orland who manufactured specialized machinery. Lely built a machine that could mix 1000 gallons of retardant and pump it into the planes in minutes. Ely provided mixing machines and services to the Forest Service for many years. Ely later related that water drops were not sufficient in the arid California climate and credited the use of retardants as key to the effectiveness of aerial firefighting.

The MATS fought twelve fires during their first month of operation and were soon flying all over California. Some of the biggest fires they fought in that first year were in southern California, including the Inaja Fire in the Cleveland National Forest. Eleven firefighters were lost in that fire before the team was dispatched. Not completely trusting their aircraft compasses, flying to southern California meant visually following U.S. Highway 99.

In a study at the end of 1956, the MATS were found to have assisted in twenty-three Forest Service fires. Of those incidents, aircraft were a deciding factor in assuring control in fourteen fires, a definite factor is assisting ground crews in four fires, did not affect control in four, and were detrimental in one when a back fire was accidentally extinguished.

In 1957, Forest Service aerial assets increased from seven air tankers to twenty-six, including eight surplus Forest Service-owned Grumman TBM Avenger torpedo bombers fitted with 400-gallon tanks. Larger and larger airplane models soon joined the fight, including Grumman F7F Tigercat (800 gallons), Consolidated PBY Catalina (1000 gallons) and Consolidated PB4Y-2 Privateer (2000 gallons), Douglas DC-6 (2800 gallons) and Douglas B-26 Invader (1200 gallons), and Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress (1200 gallons) and Boeing C-97 Stratofreighter (5000 gallons.) North American B-25 Mitchell bombers, The latter was removed from the fleet after a series of fatal accidents.

The California Division of Forestry took advantage of the Service’s offer to use the aerial tankers, before establishing their own squadrons in 1958.

The U.S. Forest Service based their regional operations at Willows Airport until 1982. Larger aircraft required a longer runway, so operations were moved to Chico Municipal Airport (Butte County).

On October 6, 2023 the Willows Airport was added to the National Register of Historic Places in recognition of the airport being the location of the first air tanker squadron in the United States.