Holyoke Airport Serves as Base During Padroni Wildfire, Volunteers Assist

When a grassland wildfire tore through an estimated 3,500 to 4,000 acres near Padroni on Wednesday, Feb. 25, a single-engine air tanker made repeated water drops by refilling its reservoir at Holyoke Municipal Airport, putting years of local preparation to its first real test.

Padroni sits approximately 11 miles north of Sterling and seven miles west of Iliff. The airport's role in the suppression effort was no accident: Holyoke Municipal Airport is designated as a SEAT, or Single-Engine Air Tanker, refill location. SEATs are called into service for water drops during wildfire suppression efforts, and designating rural airports as reload bases exists specifically to shorten the time and distance planes must travel to refill. Air operations for the incident involved two air tankers in total.

Sterling Fire Chief Lavon Ritter reported the fire was 80 percent contained at 4:26 p.m. There were no reported structure losses or injuries, including no livestock lost.

Local volunteers played a direct role at the airport, assisting with refilling operations and ground support. They were joined by several farmers who brought tractors and disc apparatus to help with suppression on the ground. The broader response drew mutual aid departments and law enforcement agencies alongside a roster of state and county agencies: the Department of Public Safety Division of Fire Protection and Control, the Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, Colorado State Patrol, Colorado Department of Transportation, Colorado Parks and Wildlife, and Logan County Road and Bridge.

The volunteers who showed up at Holyoke Municipal Airport weren't improvising. The Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control successfully piloted the SEAT program in Holyoke in April 2023, training 42 volunteers from Holyoke, Haxtun, Sedgwick County, and Chase County, Neb. in air tanker water reload procedures. Holyoke Municipal Airport was among the first airports in the state designated as a SEAT location outside Colorado's Front Range. Refresher training has been offered annually since, drawing personnel from the surrounding counties.

Despite that preparation, the Padroni fire marked the first time the capability was activated for an actual in-progress fire. The response demonstrated that years of training and a strategic airport designation could translate directly into aerial suppression support for a rural community with little margin for delayed water reloads.