At Titan, our work is the defense of our forests and natural sites through the prevention and fight against forest fires. But our commitment goes beyond that and we think that we can also contribute to society in other ways, supporting and promoting culture, sports or other social causes.

With this sponsorship we want to collaborate in the promotion of healthy activities and the promotion of values such as sportsmanship and teamwork among young people and children. We also intend to contribute to the development and improvement of the quality of life in our towns, doing our bit to promote physical activity and sports.

We are honored that the Viver soccer team has given us the opportunity to be part of their family and wear our brand on their kits. We look forward to seeing how these great talents demonstrate their ability on the field.

The delivery of the equipment took place in our facilities, which were attended by all the boys and girls along with family and friends who had the opportunity to enjoy seeing our facilities and taking pictures with our airplanes.

Thanks to all the members of the Sports Club, to the City Council of Viver and to all the fathers, mothers, boys and girls who visited us. Your presence here is a source of joy and always welcome.

We want them to obtain good sports results, but above all, we want them to acquire good values that will help them in their lives and contribute to the improvement of society.

Go Titans!

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Under the slogan “Know to foresee, foresee to protect”, the Fireplan team designed in collaboration with Titan a customized training with a clear objective: to learn how to rescue the members of any aircraft that could crash both in our facilities and outside them.

“Sometimes, the training considered as mandatory in terms of safety is little or insufficient,” Fireplan explains. “The important thing is not only to comply with current regulations, but to prepare people for scenarios that are as unfamiliar to them as they are real. Our long experience in emergencies allows us to see what is the origin of them and how to act quickly and thus, teach what to do from the perspective of professionals who have lived these situations”.

Four hours of theoretical training and two hours of practical training were given. They reviewed the basic fundamentals of fire, extinguishing agents, emergency care, care of polytraumatized persons, extraction and evacuation. Subsequently, they put all this knowledge into practice: on the one hand, extracting a person from a confined space, learning how to correctly tie him to a stretcher and how to practice an evacuation without harming him. On the other hand, they practiced with a controlled fire how to use different types of extinguishing agents, how to approach a fire and how to extinguish it correctly.

Titan employees were heavily involved in the drill.

Finally, a high-level simulation was performed, representing a type II air accident, in which the pilot was conscious but could not leave the aircraft due to her injuries. A total of 10 people were organized and distributed in two teams in an intervention where speed, coordination and knowledge of the correct techniques were essential in order to successfully extract the injured pilot.

“Our experience with Fireplan has been very rewarding,” says Jorge Civera, Occupational Risk Prevention Coordinator at Titan Firefighting.  “From the first contact they showed great professionalism and involvement, which they reflect through their training. Cases like this demonstrate the importance of having the best professionals to train”.

This initiative is part of Titan’s commitment to train all its staff with the best security experts.

If it happens, we will be prepared.

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UA Training, training center of the Spanish athlete Cástor Fantoba, freestyle world runner-up and 15 times Spanish champion, in collaboration with its partner Dares Pilot’s School, the only ATO specialized in sport and ultralight aviation in Spain, have been in charge of preparing our pilots for the 2021 season. The UPRT (Upset Recovery Training) aims to familiarize pilots with abnormal maneuvers that may occur during flight and to react quickly, confidently and effectively.

The training plan has been specially designed jointly between both schools and our company, completing some of the most outstanding maneuvers: stall recovery with and without engine, in turn, accelerated and secondary stalls, UPSET in different attitudes, positions, angles and augers.

Two aerobatic aircraft, an American Aircraft Super Decathlon for initial training and an Extra 300LP for more advanced training, have been the means used for this purpose.

“In our permanent search for excellence we have joined forces with Castor and its UA Training center because they are the best in this specialty, where knowledge, experience and training aircraft are unique.” Carlos Gómez Domínguez, manager of the company, emphasizes. “For our team this course has provided a competitive advantage in terms of precision and safety for the 2021 season.”

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The news was rekindled by recently released photographs, taken by the same helicopter that started the fire, showing a fire started by dry branches burning from the heat of the helicopter’s landing light. A tiny and easily controllable fire that could have been stopped efficiently and quickly with aerial means, but ended up becoming an inferno that burned 80% of the national park (more than 20,000 hectares) and destroyed several houses.

Pictures taken by crew members of the helicopter that accidentally started the fire. Source: ABC.

It is unknown why the helicopter crew took the photographs but did not notify the fire department (and ironic, since the helicopter’s mission was to identify landing zones for insertion and extraction of firefighting equipment). Understandably, safeguarding the safety of the crew was a priority to avoid fatal injuries to the crew. That is not questionable. But is safeguarding the crew incompatible with alerting the fire department? You can’t radio in the location of a fire, but you can take pictures to show how it started.

Without wanting to seek blame or point fingers, we must reopen the debate, to once again address “the question”: do we really need so many examples to realize how important it is to be preventative when it comes to fires? In retrospect, (as is now commonplace), wasn’t it worth sending a fast attack aircraft to avert this disaster?

There are means that cannot be dispensed with. Safeguarding our natural heritage, so unique and valuable, and belonging to all citizens, should be a compelling reason for public administrations. Not to mention the material damage, the exorbitant economic costs and the loss of human lives, animals and fauna that this entails.

Once again, as operators, we appeal to reason. Fast, light aircraft like the AT-802 can take off in 15 minutes and extinguish fires when they are weak. Nothing more is needed. Let us not waste any more time, lives, infrastructure … on archaic models that advocate acting late and badly, when all is lost. We must act, but we must act well.

Font: Australian Broadcasting Corporation

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-21/defence-helicopter-pictures-show-namadgi-orroral-valley-fire/13076752?fbclid=IwAR1gRg505fD4Wo-lGC4qlIs1IVnMkySZFQSuNGPhs7dI

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A system with which we continue to consolidate our philosophy of being transparent and gaining the trust of all our customers, whether public or private. A guarantee that, on the other hand, is increasingly demanded in a context where the fight against corruption and money laundering is a constant. Thanks to this system, we will have greater control over how we operate and reduce to the maximum any legal or reputational risk, as well as monitor any deviation or suspicious action. All of this can be endorsed before authorities and third parties in accordance with the required standards.

This certification covers all areas of our work, from aircraft maintenance to fumigation and firefighting operations, including pilot and mechanic training, aircraft leasing and sales, and the management of our companies, in addition to other services. We can proudly say that our commitment to legality, truthfulness and transparency is growing day by day, a trust thanks to which we are leaders in Europe.

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Spain or Portugal, for example, uses the A.V.A. system (Surveillance and Attack Aircraft), based on the AT-802, in land or amphibious version according to the geography of each country. On days and time slots with a high probability of fire, aircraft patrols pre-set areas to monitor or attack immediately if they see columns of smoke or small fires. The use of this particular aircraft is the key: it is an initial attack aircraft with a great capacity and speed, very versatile and maneuverable, which also attacks in swarms, allowing matching the figures of large aircraft at a much lower cost and with greater versatility. In this way, lot of time is saved and the fire is contained quickly, giving the rest of the ground and air units time to arrive and extinguish the fire (in case it has not yet been extinguished in the first discharges).

This, obviously, means a great saving in costs, very little burnt surface, without loss of human lives or damage to infrastructures and guaranteeing the safety of citizens and professionals, among many other benefits. In the following example, we see a comparative report extracted from an article published in Doxastic Safety by an AT-802 pilot (Fig.1) , comparing how he dealt with a fire in California and another in Ibiza on the same day and originating in very similar conditions. The data extracted are part of those collected during the operation and those thrown by the Balearic Nature Institute

Fig. 1 https://doxasticsafety.com/incendios-forestales-california-vs-espana/?fbclid=IwAR0-zAUkoe3AQk-rYGEUJCob2OBkm5waqKcmSo_4MhNC9Xf__9yMBbiiPw8

FThe comparison gives very enlightening information: investing in a strong initial attack pays off, but above all, it saves costs and losses. The key is simple: fires must be extinguished when they are small. Deploying large, high-capacity aircraft entails high costs, very little versatility and, in short, an ineffective way with very high losses paid for by taxpayers, and some of them, such as human lives or the loss of natural sites, are simply unrecoverable.

In 2017, the U.S. Forest Department spent $2.5 billion on fires, “an all-time record. It is estimated that by 2025, the department will invest 67% of the Forest Department’s budget in firefighting. But is it really about investing more, or investing better?

Fires can cost less, at all levels. But public administrations tend to opt for reactive rather than preventive models. And of course, the consequences of these practices are often disastrous. California 2020: over $20 billion in direct expenditures, and a similar or higher figure estimated for fire-related expenditures. 60 great fires this season. Nearly 1 million hectares razed. The dubious honor of being the worst fire season in the last 70 years (according to the data provided by the National Interagency Fire Center). Australia 2019-2020: More than A$103,000 million in losses, many of them irreversible and unrecoverable. More than 18 million hectares of land have been burned, more than 3 billion animals have died. Some species are close to extinction.

Fig2. 2020 has been the most active fire season in its recent history. However, in the last two decades, we have already seen an area of burning that is increasing every year.

And although the COVID crisis has not helped in the fight against fire, these figures cannot be attributed to an isolated event or a particularly hard season. California’s average fire spending over the past 50 years was about $1 billion annually, with a dramatic increase in recent years, where this figure has increased tenfold to $10 billion for the year

This situation, largely caused by climate change, makes one thing clear: the rules of the game have changed. Fire seasons have become longer and more heterogeneous, and there are no longer guarantees as to when or how fires will occur, because they now occur throughout the year. In many countries there is a duality between mega fires and droughts that is very irregular and unstable. The consequence, therefore, is clear: one must be alert at all times, so the balance must be tipped towards preventive war.

As long as public administrations continue to support obsolete firefighting models, expenses will continue to increase and results will be increasingly negative. In a context like this, it is necessary to appeal to reason and insist on the need to invest, mainly, in preventive means and in aircraft that can quickly extinguish fires, which can operate from any base close to the fire. Not only because it is a very small investment in relation to the multi-million dollar losses involved in not doing so, but also because of the lives that can be lost, the fauna and flora that can be extinguished and the infrastructure and natural areas that are razed to the ground every year by the flames. Money that is misused in most cases and that, in the end, is paid for by all citizens.

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