WEBVTT

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With Florida's wildfire season
rapidly approaching, the Florida National Guards,

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1st of 111th Aviation Battalion is
already preparing for potential threats.

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Joining forces with partner agencies, the
U.S. Department of Forestry, and the

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Florida Forest Service Black Hawk in [inaudible]
crews took to the skies over Camp Blanding

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Joint Training Center to extinguish a live fire.

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This is the first large scale operation
we've done in a number of years and we've

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just brought a staff member -- of our
staff on in our aviation section that

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actually has a lot of military experience
with the very units we have working here today.

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So, that's really help foster this training
session and we're working at

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a lot of good stuff here so that we don't
have to go through all the planning

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and the practice.
When we actually get wildfires in

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Florida, everybody is ready to go to action.
For their part in the exercise,

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the Department of Forestry crews ignite live
fires in a designated area using a system

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of plastic spheres that, when dropped on
the designated burn site, provide a flame.

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By using this system the departments can
track the progress of the fire fight.

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Using Bambi Buckets crews pull water from
surrounding lakes and begin extinguishing

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the roaring flames.

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This is the first tactical mission that
the members of the 1st of the 111th have

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executed since recently returning from
a deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan,

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and honing their skills in preparation
for their state mission is critical.

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Challenges and past perspective
is gonna be [inaudible]

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into the actual water source making sure
we have enough power to provide -- to get

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us to the next fire where we're gonna be
dropping the water, making sure the bucket

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doesn't oscillate underneath us so
we maintain control of the bucket at all

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times so we can drop where we need to with precision.
With a successful overseas mission

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and live tactical training completed, the 1st
of the 111th remains an asset to the State

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of Florida ready to respond to any threat.