They made their first flights a day after arriving last Thursday, helping to douse brush fires in the vicinity of Cerro Viejo, in the municipality of Tlajomulco. Tlajomulco officials said the planes made a significant contribution to controlling the blaze and promised to chip in with the rental costs.
The lease agreement is for 30 days or 120 hours of flight at a cost of ten million pesos. The fees include the pilots’ salaries and fuel.
The Air Tractor planes each have a capacity to dump 3,200 liters of water and be can be refilled in less than four minutes.
Zapopan Mayor Hector Robles said though expensive, it is more cost effective to rent the planes rather than purchase them, since they will only be used for around two months of the year.
A Felix helicopter owned by the Jalisco Civil Protection Unit and another light plane belonging to the state Environment Agency (Semadet) are the only other aircraft being used to fight fires in the state.