For nearly 50 years, Ryan Air Attack Base has played a vital role in wildland fire suppression efforts in Southern California and Riverside County.

 
Ryan Air Attack Base is named after the late Claude T. Ryan who is most famous for having designed the Spirit of   St. Louis airplane, and who began the Ryan School of Aeronautics in Hemet during World War II.   Through contract with the federal government 14,000 army cadets were trained to fly.   With the end of WWII and the need for pilots diminishing, training ceased.   The facility eventually became a public airport owned and operated by Riverside County.

In 1957 the United States Forest Service commenced airtanker loading operations and in 1959 California Division of Forestry (now CAL FIRE) began their operation at Ryan field.   Both agencies maintained separate parking,

loading and mixing areas but the initial stages of a joint base operation had begun.   In 1969 the United States Forest Service (USFS) and the California Division of Forestry (CDF) truly merged into a joint agency air attack base sharing the base operation, responsibilities and facilities. The joint base concept successfully continued operation until 1998 when the USFS moved their airtanker base operation to the larger and recently vacated Norton Air Force Base.

Ryan Air Attack Base, late 1980's

Ryan Air Attack Base is one of 19 tanker bases strategically located throughout California.   Because of climate, weather, fuels, geography and fire occurrence Ryan is strategically located.   The base provides initial attack aircraft service to over 17 thousand square miles of private, state, and federally owned lands.   Up until 1998, Ryan was statistically the busiest air tanker base in the United States delivering an average of

TBM's assigned from the late 1950's

1.5 million gallons of retardant annually.   With the USFS moving to San Bernardino, these statistic have dropped dramatically.

From the beginning of Ryan Air Attack Base, CAL FIRE and the USFS used privately owned contracted WWII vintage aircraft. The type and sizes of aircraft varied based on vendor, availability of flyable airframes and spare parts.   As the years counted off and the flight hours increased these airplanes became static museum displays or were robbed for parts to keep the

dwindling fleet flying.  Because of the dwindling air tanker fleet, CAL FIRE acquired excess U.S. Navy Grumman S-2A submarine hunting aircraft.   These planes were converted form military use to firefighting aircraft using a design developed by Hemet Valley Flying Service.   The first two aircraft build-ups were completed by Hemet Valley Flying Service and tested at Ryan Air Attack Bases.   The basic aircraft design has been in continuous state service since 1975.

Ryan Air Attack Base, early 1980's

In 1977 CAL FIRE began a two-week pilot helitack program utilizing a contracted helicopter.   Headed up by Captain Emil Derdowski and two firefighters the program was extended to a total of four weeks.   The success of this pilot program brought on line Hemet-Ryan Helitack Base

using a full time contract helicopter staffed with three captains and nine firefighters operating out of Ryan Air Attack Base.

In 1981, CAL FIRE acquired Bell UH-1F Huey helicopters through the Federal Excess Property Program (FEPP) leasing them from the Air Force through the USFS for one dollar a year.   This program now allowed CAL FIRE to operate and manage its own fleet of fixed wing and rotor wing aircraft.

In 1992 CAL FIRE acquired several of the larger Bell UH-IH helicopters through FEPP with Hemet-Ryan Helitack stationed at Ryan Air Attack Base receiving one of the first buildups.   These helicopters were further upgraded with larger engines, main rotor and tail boom assemblies making them the  “Super Huey” model.   CAL FIRE now has eleven of these helicopters in service with nine based throughout the state.  In 1993, the  OV-10 replaced the older Cessna 337 as Air Attack 310 base at Ryan.  In June of 2001, CAL FIRE replaced the older S-2A's at Ryan with Tanker 72 and

73, both new  S-2G Grumman  models.  The upgrades include constant flow 1200-gallon tanks and turbine engines allowing for better capabilites and performance.

 

Click here for more Base Pictures	Click here for more Helitack Pictures

If you are interested in a tour of the facility or formal presentation of CAL FIRE Air Operations for your civic group, club or school, please contact us at (951) 652-2066 during normal business hours or email us at: rryanairbasestaff@fire.ca.gov

Personnel