Santa Barbara County Fire department practices refilling water-dropping helicopters at Cachuma lake (April 13, 2015)

Approximately 20 Santa Barbara County firefighters kicked off a month-long, department-wide training on Monday at Cachuma Lake. According to department spokesperson Capt. Dave Zaniboni, the firefighters are taking part in helicopter drills, where they practice plumbing water through a fire hose into the chopper. That’s common practice when there’s no standing body of water less than 15 minutes away during a fire, Zaniboni said. The squad was also reminded of dozer safety. “This is really important to us because wildland firefighting is one of the more dangerous things that we do,” Zaniboni said.

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