Klump Pump Takes Flight
During the first weeks of July 2007, dry lightning in the Boise National Forest produced more than 100 initial attacks overnight. Wildfires spread faster than limited personnel could knock them down. As local resources dwindled, the fires raged.
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Todd Sexton of Garden Valley Helitack was the incident commander on the Basin Creek Fire, and he remembers it well. "Ground fuels were not as much a factor as the spotting from Sub-Alpine fir," he says. "We could hardly believe what was happening, but we knew we were in for a ride."
The situation was grim. Personnel were spread thin; two-person crews battled acres of flames with hand tools and guts.
"Because we were a long way from a dip site, helicopter buckets were becoming increasingly ineffective," Sexton says. "It quickly became apparent that we could only call dispatch and wish for reinforcements. We were all out, and 'copter time was at a premium."
The dispatcher at the Uni-Engine headquarters in Northern California was aware of the problems in Boise. Hours earlier, he had issued a heads-up alert to unit drivers to collect their gear and be ready to roll. Minutes after the order came in, the machines were on the road.
A U.S. Forest Service helicopter flew a Uni-Engine into the Basin Creek area. Its articulating feet hugged the rugged terrain while a second helicopter began filling it by air.
"While it was being filled, we laid out the hose, then began straight streaming," Sexton says. "The first tank of water was used for suppression, and it worked. This bought us time to limb trees and line the spots, effectively stopping the spread of fire."
The Uni-Engine is the brainchild of retired USFS Division Chief Jim Klump, and fire crews have affectionately dubbed the apparatus the "Klump Pump." This machine is the culmination of Klump's many years of experience as a wildland firefighter — more than 10 years as a smokejumper — and is designed to fill a specific need not previously addressed.
"A water drop on the fire tends to get lost on overstory vegetation, miss the fire or evaporate," Klump says. "The Uni-Engine is much more efficient."
This 1,000-gallon, self-contained, self-leveling water source with foam capability is positioned by helicopter in remote canyons and mountaintops where wildfires often rage unchecked. The unit is an easy-to-use, highly mobile firefighting apparatus — an invaluable weapon for smokejumpers, helitack, Hot Shots and other initial-response crews fighting fire for rapid containment.
The Uni-Engine story is as much about ingenuity and determination as about the apparatus itself. Years of thought and planning, as well as suggestions from fire crews in the field, went into its design. But it started with a simple idea.
"Early in my career, it became clear that a tool was needed in that initial-attack/extended-attack period in remote locations to quickly deploy a water delivery system that was reliable and easy to operate," Klump says. "I knew such a system would improve both safety and efficiency. Many fires that smokejumpers jump are not big, but should any get out of control, the exposure to people, the cost, etc., goes up disproportionately as the fire grows in size. Smokejumpers fresh from these fires would say, 'Man, if we'd only had 300 gallons of water, we could have kept this fire from spreading.' I knew there must be something we could do."
Several years later, a regional helicopter specialist named Ralph Johnston had an idea.
"There was a year or two in Redding," Klump says, "that all we had was a fixed-wing Twin Beach that held four jumpers. Then, in 1964, we experimentally jumped out of a Charley Model Huey helicopter. We jumped and we rappelled, but we didn't do this operationally — everything was experimental.
"Ralph was heading up this team at the time. He'd made a machine he called a Helipumper. It was a small 10- or 15-gallon container with a battery-operated electric pump and a small hose, which was slung in by a three-place reciprocating helicopter, like a Hiller or a Bell that we used in those days. His was the first concept of a self-contained tank/pump/hose combination. Ralph's machine showed me the potential for the Uni-Engine."
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