According to a parent letter sent to the Nederland Middle-Senior High School community, a helicopter landed on the middle school field on Wednesday, May 10, 2023.

Gavan Goodrich, principal, sent the following information.

“Safety is a top priority at Nederland Middle-Senior High School and the Boulder Valley School District. I want to let you know that a helicopter with the State of Colorado Division of Fire Prevention & Control made an unplanned landing on the east side middle school field, due to inclement weather conditions. There is no question that the visit made for a little excitement on our campus.”

“The helicopter landed without notice. At the time, our middle school students were outside for recess. Thankfully, they were on the west athletic field, and therefore were a safe distance when the helicopter came in, allowing for a safe landing.”

“Our administrative team made contact with the pilot of the helicopter and we notified the BVSD security team immediately. We will be keeping students off the athletic field this afternoon, as long as the helicopter is here. As soon as the weather improves, the helicopter crew is planning to continue their journey. We are glad that our school was able to assist.”

This journalist was at the school shortly after the landing and was able to talk to the pilot and crew of the Canon Helitrack. The aircraft is a Bell 205 A1++ with the call sign 28HJ.

The helicopter typically has five firefighters, including one manager, one Incident Commander Type 4 (https://www.nwcg.gov/positions/ict4/position-ref-matjob aids) and three Firefighter/Helicopter crew members. It has a 240 gallon bucket with 100 feet of longline and a removable tank.

It is used for:

• STEP – This is a specialized loading and unloading procedure done while the helicopter is in a single skid, toe-in or hover landing under full power. It can be used to both insert and extract personnel on all but US Forest Service lands.

• Night Operations – During high fire activity a second pilot is activated for the night missions. Water dropping only.

• Hoist – Training and certification for hoist extraction capability will begin in 2022

• Water dropping (bucket work)

• Recon

• Personnel transport – Each ship has nine “Passenger” seats/seat belts

• Cargo – Allowable payload varies from day to day but is typically around 2,000 pounds.

• Large Incident Support

• Search and Rescue

To find out more about the organizations, check out the website at https://www.cofiretech.com/ and https://dfpc.colorado. gov/.