Helicopter Rappellers
Helicopter rappellers are wildland firefighters who descend on a rope from a hovering helicopter to reach fires where the aircraft cannot land. Rappel crews are a small subset of the nation's helitack program, the helicopter crews of wildland fire. Most helitack crews deploy by landing; rappel-capable crews can also insert firefighters where no landing zone exists.
The North Idaho Rappellers are one of these crews: a U.S. Forest Service helicopter rappel crew based in Hayden, Idaho, providing initial attack across the Idaho Panhandle National Forests and the Northern Rockies.
Why rappelling exists
Much of the western United States is steep, timbered, and roadless. When lightning starts a fire deep in that country, the ground response may be a day or more of hiking, enough time for a small smoke to become a large fire. Aerial delivery puts firefighters on the fire while it is still small.
A helicopter can only land where it has a clear, level spot, which is rare in dense forest. Rappelling removes that constraint. The helicopter hovers above the trees, rappellers descend on ropes, and their gear follows shortly after on a separate line. Firefighters can be working a remote fire within minutes of the aircraft arriving overhead.
How a rappel mission works
A mission starts with a report of a smoke. The crew launches with rappellers and cargo, sizes up the fire from the air, and selects a rappel spot. Rappellers descend under the direction of a spotter in the aircraft, cargo is lowered to them, and the helicopter returns to base or supports the fire with water drops.
On the ground, the rappellers, often just two, carry enough food, water, and equipment to be self-sufficient for multiple operational periods. They construct fireline, fell hazard trees, mop up, and call the fire out. Then each packs 110+ pounds of gear over rugged, off-trail miles to the nearest road for pickup.
Training and standards
Every U.S. Forest Service rappel program operates under the Standards For Rappel Operations (SFRO), a single national standard for equipment, procedures, and certification. Rookies qualify at consolidated rappel training, and veterans recertify every year. Because the standard is national, a qualified rappeller from one base can fill in with another rappel program.
The community is small, with only a few hundred qualified rappellers operating in a given year. It draws experienced firefighters from engines, hand crews, hotshot crews, and conventional helitack.
Rappellers and the bigger picture
Rappellers share the remote initial attack mission with smokejumpers, who arrive by parachute from fixed-wing aircraft. The two capabilities cover similar ground in different ways; see Smokejumpers vs. Rappellers for the comparison.
Interested in the work? Read about the job and visit the Recruitment page to learn how to join the North Idaho Rappellers.
In this section
- FIREWildland Fire HubThe starting point for this section.
- RAPPELHelicopter RappellersYou are here
- JUMPSmokejumpingParachute-delivered wildland firefighters, explained.
- COMPAREdifferent types of Aerially delivered firfightersHow the two aerial delivery methods compare.
- CREWSWildland Fire CrewsThe full guide to the major crew types.