When a squadron is tasked with aerial fire fighting, they must extinguish fires that start in places standard fire fighting vehicles can't reach, said Sgt. Samuel P. Carnes Jr., a CH-46 mechanic and crew chief for HMM-265. This means fires on weapons ranges are the squadron's primary fire fighting responsibility.

The squadron also helps Okinawan fire departments with brush fires on the northern part of the island. When a fire starts on a weapons range, it is generally inaccessible to the fire department's vehicles given the danger of unexploded ordnance.

"I'm glad we got this new system," Carnes said. "It will allow us to deploy more water, more accurately, faster."

Carnes explained that the better technology of the Bambi system will help during summer when fires are more apt to occur. The easier transportability of the bucket will cut down the time the fire has to spread, making it easier to extinguish.

"I wish we had this bucket back in the summer of 2000," he said. "We were fighting an average of two or three fires a week between May and June. Some fires took us 4.5 hours to extinguish. The Bambi system should help us cut that down."

Carnes said he was very impressed with the Bambi bucket, and believes the system is a vast improvement over the old one.

The Bambi bucket is better than the older version because it is made of nylon material and is collapsible, allowing for faster transportation to the site of the fire, explained Randy Meyer, deputy fire chief for Marine Corps Bases Japan fire department.

The fire department purchased nine of the Bambi buckets three years ago because the old fiberglass buckets were so heavy and difficult to use, said Meyer.

"It took a long time to get the appropriate paperwork pushed through before we could use the bucket," he said. "Now that it's all done and we can finally start using this superior fire-fighting system."

The purchase of the Bambi bucket, widely used in civilian fire fighting since 1983, marks a huge upgrade over the older bucket, Meyer said.

"The helicopters used to transport the old fire bucket, full of water, under the helicopter to wherever the fire was," Meyer said. "More fuel was used transporting it."

The Bambi bucket gives pilots more control of how much water they carry, even while still flying a mission, Meyers said. While submerging the bucket into an open water source, if the helicopter lifts up slowly, the Bambi bucket will not open as wide, meaning less water will stay in the bucket.

If the helicopter lifts up quickly, the bucket opens more widely and holds more water. Filling the Bambi bucket is also easier, Meyers said. The old bucket was weighted at the bottom and took longer to fill. The Bambi bucket is weighted on the side so it almost instantly submerges and fills when dropped into water.

HMM-262's flight familiarized the pilots and crew with the new bucket and displayed any limitations before deploying to fight an actual fire, said Lt. Col. Phillip Reiman, commanding officer of HMM-265.

"The improvements of the new system will help us more effectively complete our mission," Reiman said. "This will help ensure we minimize the damage by getting the fire out before it really gets going."

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