INFERNO AT PIGEON VALLEY
THE YAW
On the 13th day of the fire, Bill Reid shut off the throttle of his helicopter and watched a patch of scorched brown branches rush towards him.
It was 17 February 2019, and Reid had just emptied about 800 litres of water onto a blaze that was raging through the Tasman District’s Pigeon Valley, a grassy enclave punctuated with lifestyle properties and farms. Flying at about 400 feet, Reid kept his shoulder strap loose so he could lean out of the cockpit of his Squirrel (an Airbus AS350) to pinpoint where to drop the water. Usually, he wore a heavy Vietnam-era helmet. That morning, however, his son Toby, also a pilot, had lent him a brand-new crash helmet. It was made of carbon fibre, durable and built for impact.
Reid toggled the release valve on his monsoon bucket, which dangled about eight metres below the helicopter. He watched with satisfaction as the payload hit its mark and steam spewed up from the earth.
Bill Reid had seen big blazes create vortexes that sucked small trees and fence posts out of the ground, propelling them hundreds of feet into the air.
Several other pilots were working nearby, all dipping their monsoon buckets into a nearby pond, all pummelling hotspots. Reid lived in nearby Eighty Eight Valley, but the others had come from all over — including Marlborough, Wellington, the West Coast and Canterbury and as far north as Warkworth — to fight one of the biggest wildfires ever seen in New Zealand. At its height, the blaze spanned 36 kilometres. Nearly two weeks in, 23 helicopters and two fixed-wing aircraft had been working in simultaneous operation. At the time, it was the country’s largest-ever aerial firefight.
After releasing the water, Reid accelerated and climbed away from the flames. Then he felt the helicopter “yaw” — suddenly twist — to the left. Then it yawed again, in the other direction. Then there was a loud bang.
At 66 years old, Reid was one of the country’s most experienced and respected chopper pilots. As he liked to say, he was born to the job — his father, himself a pioneering helicopter pilot, introduced Reid to the family business when he was in primary school. By the time he was 10, he was cleaning out hangars at the local aero club in exchange for flying lessons. As a teenager, he read accident reports cover to cover. By then he had spent more time learning to fly planes than he had driving cars. During his 20s, Reid piloted helicopters for the fledgling venison industry, keeping the aircraft steady as shooters hung out of the chopper door aiming tranquiliser guns at deer. He’d flown into mountain ranges on search and rescue missions in dicey weather. Reid had written about the particular pressure of being a helicopter pilot — how you only get called in when things turn desperate. “When the fire is out of control, or the crash victim is too far away from road access to make it to hospital within the ‘golden hour’. People expect you to fly through smoke, cloud, fog, darkness.”
And he did.
Reid had also flown in more fires than he could count — both massive controlled burns and firefighting missions
