Firefighting helicopters are a bit useless

[Staszekr03]

I feel that firefighting helicopters are a bit useless, I built a helipad next to a fire station and expected the helicopters to be able to fly to any fire on the map. To my surprise a rail distribution office burned down that was just out of range of that fire station. if helicopters have the same range as a regular fire engine then there really isn't a reason to ever use them.

[Egodeus]

Originally posted by Silent_Shadow:

Originally posted by Staszekr03:

I've now looked at this and there was plenty of water for it to get, the range looks absurdly low considering how fast helicopters are and that they can take a direct route. If they were allowed to fly to the fire they would have put it out

The thing is that fires do not take a long time to completely burn down a building, and while helicopters are fast, it still takes ~48 seconds on slow speed for the fastest helicopter to traverse just one km. If your helicopter has to go 2 km to its water source and then 5 more km to the fire, chances are the building will have burned down before the helicopter can even get there.

Does this make helicopters useless for fire fighting? I would say no; they do not need workers and they can cover a larger area than fire trucks can, especially in areas where roads cannot be straight. If you limit the buildings to small sizes, then even the cheap Mi-2 helicopter can be enough to safeguard an area.

Yeah, I've also used them as a second line of defense against large fires. Most of my firestations in the boonies are the two engine types with not a lot of firefighters at any one time since I want to use my workers for the productive jobs. So sometimes what happens is that the two engines from the nearest small firestation arrive and start putting out the fire, but are either extremely slow in putting it out, or don't even manage to make progress on the fire, just slow down it's spread. And then a moment later the helicopter brigade from the main firestation flies in, and dumps enough water on the problem that it goes away.

If I had just relied on the helicopters, the building would have burned down, and without the helicopters I would have needed to stock the local firestation with double the amount of workers at all times.

[bspawn]

One advantage of heli firefighters is they do no need workers, so they are ideal for remote locations that do not use workers.

[MrKrabs]

I´m just in process of building up a new area.
If any building would burn down... so be it.
But if a fully equiped construction office smokes up... I´m toast.
Therefor one of the first tasks for me.
Get them choppers in.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3157298598

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