PHOTO OF THE DAY
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PHOTO OF THE DAY

This summer has been full of wildfires throughout Alaska. Numerous firefighting teams have been called up from the lower United States to help in the fight. One of the teams that have joined in the fight is a local team, the Alaska Army National Guard. Using two UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters and Bambi-Buckets, the Alaska Army National Guard teams have been performing firefighting missions in coordination with the Bureau of Land Management, Fire Services based out of Fort Wainwright, Alaska. On Friday, June 26, the team flew their aircraft down to Tok, Alaska, to assist in fighting a few large fires in the area. Using internal aircraft communications, the crew chief Sgt. Philip Peter talked to the pilots Chief Warrant Officer 4 Nyle Harrison and Chief Warrant Officer 2 Molly Reque to guide them onto ponds. From that point the crew used the Bambi-Bucket to gather around 800 gallons of water and fly to the selected area of the fire to extinguish the flames in that location. The dropping of the water could be controlled by either the pilots or the crew chief. The teams worked with the fire mission flight controller, who circled the area in a plane and guided both the helicopters and skimmer aircraft onto flare up areas. Both the helicopters and skimmers took turns bombarding the fire filled trees with water until they reached their flight time limits. (Photo by Sherman Hogue/Fort Wainwright PAO)

Army Sgt. Philip Peter looks out from a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter while dropping water from a bambi bucket to support firefighting efforts near Tok, Alaska, June 26, 2015. Peter is a crew chief assigned to the Alaska National Guard’s 1st Battalion, 207th Aviation Regiment. U.S. Army photo by Sherman Hogue

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Lance Cpl. Alex Rowan, a combat engineer with 4th Combat Engineer Battalion, 4th Marine Division, stationed out of Bessemer, Ala., runs to take cover before the Anti-Personnel Obstacle Breaching System detonates during the SAPPER Leaders Course at Camp Lejeune, N.C., on Friday. During the course, the Marines used assault and breaching techniques to clear a wire obstacle using line charges that utilized C4 explosives and their APOBS. Cpl. Krista James/Marine Corps

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An MH-60S Knight Hawk helicopter attached to Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron (HSC) 21 takes off from the Pacific Partnership 2015 landing area in Arawa, Papua New Guinea on Friday. Now in its tenth iteration, Pacific Partnership is the largest annual multilateral humanitarian assistance and disaster relief preparedness mission conducted in the Indio-Asia-Pacific region. MCC Greg Badger/Navy

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Supplies are unloaded from a C-5M Super Galaxy at Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, on Sunday to aid with Alaska firefighting efforts.The flight by the 60th Air Mobility Wing originated at Travis Air Force Base, Calif., and was delivering 127,000 pounds of supplies. Sam Harrell/BLM-Alaska Fire Service via AP

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