Tracy Zedeck keeps notes about every wildfire she’s ever helped fight as an aerial firefighter in three dark-brown, weathered logbooks. She stores the books in a small bag along with a bracelet of charms she collected overseas as a child. As her most cherished belongings, they are stashed near her front door so that if there is a fire nearby while she’s away, a neighbor can rescue them for her. 

It’s no surprise she is fully prepared; Zedeck is familiar with the suddenness and unpredictability of wildfires, having battled some of the worst in living memory in California. The Canadair CL-415 “Super Scooper” is her weapon against them, and these logbooks hold the stories of over 6,000 flight hours.

Clad in a thick, brown, flame-resistant uniform and gloves, her hair tied back in a ponytail, the aerial firefighter is focused on surveying the terrain beneath her while in flight to battle a blaze. From her position on the left-hand side of the aircraft, she can see smoke below her swirling around pine trees while a jagged line of amber marks the perimeter of the blaze. But Zedeck’s first target is the nearby lake. She flies over the expanse of water, scanning for power lines, buoys, logs, swimmers, boats or fishers — anything that could be an obstacle. 

Satisfied it’s clear, she approaches the lake again, this time flying low enough to scoop gallons of lake water into the Super Scooper’s tank. Because this lake is close to the blaze, she fills the tank and returns to the fire in about two minutes. Then, from 150 feet in the air, she releases a deluge of 1,621 gallons of lake water in one go. 

From Alaska to the Maldives

Zedeck fights fires all over the country. On a given day, she could be posted anywhere from Alaska to California or even as far afield as Texas or Tennessee. “This everyday unknown, and the variety, keeps me on my toes and engaged with what I do. But the absolute best part about my job is the mission itself: combining my passion for aviation with helping others,” she said.

While California has its own fleet of aircraft for aerial support, if there’s a request for a Super Scooper or a fire needs additional support, Zedeck and her team may be called in to help. 

They spring into action, fighting in rotations of 11 days on, 11 days off, including two days designated for traveling. The shifts are long, lasting nine to 14 hours. The maximum “flight time” in a day is limited to eight hours of firefighting. To keep the pilots safe and on the ball, they aren’t allowed to fly for more than a total of 42 hours over a seven-day period without a mandatory day off.

Typically, she works along the perimeter to stop a fire’s spread, but sometimes, she must wade through the smoke.

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Breaking into flying

Zedeck is originally from Berkeley, where her family still lives, and at 10 years old, she and her mother joined her father (a university professor) on a sabbatical overseas. “I suppose this exposure to flying and living in different cultures created an idea of a life that could be filled with adventure, travel and fun,” she said.

She eventually left California to study psychology in college in Colorado, but flying was still on her mind. 

Coming from a non-aviation family, she didn’t have the connections that some pilots benefit from, so her brother suggested she find a job at an airport and network. The airport near her college wasn’t hiring, but a member of the staff directed her to a trailer across the airfield. It turned out to be a glider base, and there, she managed to get her foot in the door — literally — having banged on the door with her resume the same day the administrative assistant quit. She was hired on the spot.

Zedeck worked in the office part time while completing her degree and getting her pilot certificate, which eventually elevated her to glider tow pilot. “It was the best promotion of my life and one heck of a flying job — finding thermals in the summer and mountain waves in the winter,” Zedeck said.

After building up 800 hours of flying time, she went freelance, and during a pit stop in Alaska, Zedeck again went from door to door with her resume. She got a job as a glacier pilot, transporting climbers and tourists on wheel skis until she was laid off due to the Great Recession. She returned to Berkeley to get her seaplane license and work toward her ultimate goal of aerial firefighting.

Returning to her roots

Back in the Bay Area, Zedeck worked as a jet company “parts person” on weekdays and as a standby charter pilot on weekends while taking helicopter lessons out of Hayward airport and attending night school at the College of Alameda. Two years later, in 2012, she was certified as a commercial helicopter pilot; she got certified to fly commercial seaplanes and scored a job as a pilot in the Maldives.

For three years, Zedeck flew celebrities and jet setters between luxury resorts in a Twin Otter. The next adventure beckoned, and she spent six months flying tourists to islands in Croatia. By 2016, however, the Bay Area was drawing her back again.

Back on home turf, she finally qualified for aerial firefighting. “I can’t imagine doing anything else now, and I’m very grateful for this opportunity,” said Zedeck, who is one of the few female CL-415 pilots working in the United States. According to the Centre for Aviation and Federal Aviation Administration, only around 5% of commercial pilots in the U.S. are female. “Occasionally, I get a puzzled look, and someone asks, ‘Are you part of the crew?’ A few times, I’ve been mistaken for being a flight attendant. But I don’t let it phase me. I just take it as an opportunity to try and change people’s perceptions. I also try to encourage anyone that with hard work, passion and determination, anyone can do anything they set their mind to.”

A new challenge every day

Zedeck relocated to Oregon in 2019 but remains working in the same role. She’s battled hundreds of fires since then, and in California, every mission is different because of the huge variety of landscapes. Zedeck can start her day somewhere where the terrain is flat or close to sea level and end it somewhere like Lake Tahoe, where the terrain is steep and mountainous. “It’s a challenging job because the conditions are different every day. The weather is constantly changing, the terrain is often rugged, and our water source is always different — rivers, lakes or reservoirs.”

“I remember being on some of those California fires that made the news a few years ago,” Zedeck said, thumbing through her logbook. In fact, 2018 and 2020 turned out to be two of the worst years for wildfires on record in California. In Shasta and Trinity counties, the 2018 Carr Fire was one of the many global headline-making wildfires she battled from the sky. Zedeck recalls flying over Trinity Lake to scoop up water before dropping it through the smoke-filled air. It was the ninth-most destructive wildfire in Californian history, eventually obliterating 1,614 structures across 229,651 acres of land, with a loss of eight lives.

Only the following month, in Mendocino County, Zedeck skimmed the waters of Lake Mendocino and Clear Lake to fill up her tank before depositing it onto the Mendocino Complex Fire, which at the time was the largest wildfire in history in California, covering an area bigger than Los Angeles. It blazed for almost two months before it was finally brought under control, having destroyed at least 280 structures.

This year’s fire season saw Zedeck sent to fight fires in Washington, Oregon, Alaska, Idaho and Montana. “It’s too early to say if fire season 2023 is over yet, so I will stay ready until the first snowflakes fall,” she adds.

When asked which fire she remembers best, without hesitation, Zedeck replies, “My first. It was near Pinedale, Wyoming. It was not only my first fire but also Scooper No. 263’s first fire. One of the Pinedale residents spelled out ‘thank you’ in capital letters with rocks in their yard so it could be read from the air. It was in that moment that I knew I was part of something that could make a difference and that I was exactly where I was meant to be.”