Pangborn Seeing Increase in Firefighting Aircraft

The wildfires burning in and around North Central Washington have led to an increase in aircraft at Pangborn Memorial Airport in East Wenatchee.

Trent Moyers, Director of Airports for the Chelan-Douglas Regional Port Authority, says there’s been quite a variety of aircraft using the airport over the past few weeks.

“We’ve had a couple of the super scooper aircraft that we saw here last year based out at the airport. They’re back on the field, and we’re seeing a lot of helicopter activity as well.”

As many as ten fixed-wing and six rotary-wing aircraft have been active at Pangborn since early August.

Moyers says the influx of planes and helicopters doesn’t change much on the operational front for Pangborn’s ground crews, but it does quicken the pace of things a bit and increases the airport’s use of one highly-precious commodity.

“We sell more fuel,” detailed Moyers. “We try to respond to their needs as quickly as we can by refueling aircraft so they can get back to doing what they do best. It just picks up the pace for us a little bit.”

Moyers adds the increased activity at Pangborn hasn’t interrupted any of its arriving or departing commercial flights through Horizon Air.