Helicopter bucket

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This photo, taken from a USN UH-3 Sea King, shows a Bambi bucket used to combat brush fires in California.

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A-Flex collapsible Monsoon Bucket.

A Helicopter bucket, or Helibucket as it is officially known in the U.S.,^[1] is a specialised bucket used by firefighting helicopters to carry water in aerial firefighting. They are suspended on a cable and filled from a water sources such as ponds and river. Depending on the type of bucket, the water source can be as shallow as 1 foot (30.5 cm). The bucket has a controllable valve on the bottom which releases the water on the command of the helicopter pilot. Some buckets can include fire retardant foam or the ability to pump water from the bucket into an internal tank. Bucket capacities vary from 72 to 2,600 gallons (275 to 9,840 liters), with the size used generally determined by the lifting capacity of the helicopter used. Buckets can be collapsible or rigid. Collapsible buckets have been in use since at least the 1970s.

Bambi Bucket is one brand of collapsible buckets, developed by Don Arney and in production since 1983 by SEI Industries.^[2] SEI's Bambi Bucket was selected by the U.S. Marine Corps for use with their CH-46 Sea Knight helicopters, for use in firefighting support on Okinawa.^[3] The term "Bambi Bucket" is sometimes used as if it were a generic term but it is actually a trademark.

A-Flex Technology makes a bucket branded as the A-Flex Firefighting Monsoon Bucket. The term Monsoon Bucket is used generically for collapsible buckets in Australia and New Zealand and occasionally the US and other regions.^[4]

Fire & Rescue New Zealand is a non-governmental Rural Fire Service and also specializes in the design and the manufacture of the HELiFIRE Monsoon Bucket and HELiFOAM Class A Foam Direct Injection System.^[5]