A forest fire broke out in the Avzyansky forestry of the Beloretsk district on July 5, 2023. 267 people and 57 pieces of equipment were sent to extinguish it. On July 8, a Ka-32A11BC fire and rescue helicopter was connected to extinguish the fire. But on July 11, the situation became more complicated.
As Kirill Pervov, First Deputy Chairman of the State Committee for Emergency Situations of the Republic of Bashkortostan, told RT, at one point the wind changed and the fire moved from grassroots to horseback. 24 rescuers were blocked by a ring of fire on one of the peaks of the mountain.
"They extinguished the fire with knapsack fire extinguishers. One of the groups saw that the wind began to change abruptly, and decided to go down to a safe area, but they were cut off from the escape routes and requested help by radio. Only a helicopter could help them, "Pervov tells RT. "There was quite a lot of smoke in this area, so the crew had to fly blindly. When the helicopter approached, the rescuers gave a signal with a rocket launcher, and within half an hour the crew took them out of the trap in two flights.
According to Pervov, they had to carry out such an evacuation for the first time and the greatest heroism in this situation was shown by the pilot of the rescue helicopter of the State Committee for Emergency Situations of the Republic of Bashkortostan Vitaly Doroshin.
- © State Committee for Emergency Situations of the Republic of Bashkortostan
Doroshin himself says that he did not perform the feat, but simply did his job.
"I would not call it a feat, we, in addition to firefighting, are also engaged in search and rescue operations," says RT Doroshin.
He notes that when they first approached the blocked firefighters, the crew did not know if there was a place to land at the top.
"It was difficult to find them in smoke conditions," the pilot recalls. "They got in touch on the radio station and guided us on commands from the ground. At first, they wanted to use a winch, that is, to evacuate in hover mode, but it would be very long and difficult in smoke conditions and taking into account the fact that the line of fire was quite close. After that, we inspected the proposed landing site of the helicopter - the site is quite difficult, but we managed to make a safe landing. Well done and the rescuers themselves, who got their bearings, cut down several small bushes-trees that interfered with the helicopter.
- © State Committee for Emergency Situations of the Republic of Bashkortostan
According to Doroshin, after landing, the crew assessed the situation and decided to divide the rescuers into two groups and take out flights of 12 people.
"Although the mountains there are low, somewhere up to about 1 thousand meters, they had nowhere to go. For two flights, they were evacuated from there, the second flight was carried out without a flare, but in conditions of smoke, they told us additionally where they were, "Doroshin recalls. - The crew was prepared for this type of work, including in mountainous areas. We did our job – we helped people. As it turned out later, they were saved. Then we were all worried together on earth.
The pilot notes that the successfully completed operation is the merit of the entire crew.
"This is a great merit of both the co-pilot and the flight mechanic," says Doroshin. - The flight mechanic directly supervised the entire evacuation, in particular loading and unloading after landing, participated in the selection of the site so that there were no obstacles. Without the team, I wouldn't have done anything there unequivocally. As for me, I can't say that this is a familiar situation, because I only started to deal with search and rescue operations in the committee, I would say that this is one of the debuts in real conditions. So we can handle the tasks assigned to us by the committee."
40-year-old Doroshin flies half his life. He started working in 2003 as a pilot in civil aviation, then was a test pilot at the Kumertau Aviation Production Enterprise. Since January 2022, he has become an instructor pilot of the Ka-32 helicopter at the transport aviation center. For 20 years in civil aviation, Doroshin flew more than 4 thousand hours, in addition to 750 hours on test flights.
"I've been in flight work since 2003. Of course, I like it. We plan to continue to fly, to benefit the republic, "says the pilot.
- © State Committee for Emergency Situations of the Republic of Bashkortostan
On July 17, at a meeting with the head of the republic, the State Committee for Emergency Situations of the Republic of Bashkortostan presented the crew for the award. It was possible to finally extinguish the fire with an area of 1664 hectares on July 16.