During Verticon 2025, held in Dallas, USA, from March 11-13, the world’s largest helicopter aviation industry event, the Canadian company SEI Industries showcased its Bambi Bucket firefighting baskets. In Poland, the company’s products are distributed by Parasnake Arkadiusz Szewczyk, based in Kielce, which has successfully supplied Bambi Bucket firefighting baskets to the Police aviation unit.
Photos: MILMAG Archive
SEI Industries Ltd. introduced the first versions of the Bambi Bucket sling-load firefighting baskets to the market in 1982. These lightweight, durable, and flexible fire suppression tanks became a successful plug-and-play solution for aerial firefighting using helicopters, thanks to their relatively low cost. They were introduced alongside traditional water tanks (Fireflex Pumpkin Tank, Heliwell, and Low-Profile Tank) and other baskets (Bambi MAX and Bambi Torrentula), designed for firefighting operations, forming a highly sought-after and valuable product line for fire departments and emergency response units.
The buckets are fully collapsible, equipped with a high-flow dump valve, and feature low power consumption (5A at 28V DC). Currently, there are 21 variants of Bambi Bucket available, offering different capacities depending on user requirements and the helicopter carrying them:
Bambi Bucket in the Polish Police
On September 4, 2020, the Parasnake Arkadiusz Szewczyk company from Kielce won the repeated tender for the delivery of two Bambi Bucket firefighting tanks, designed to be sling-loaded under helicopters, along with an additional equipment package. The procurement covered the supply of a larger firefighting bucket with a minimum capacity of 2,900 liters and a maximum weight of 3,100 kg, intended for the S-70i Black Hawk International helicopter, as well as a smaller bucket with a minimum capacity of 1,500 liters and a maximum weight of 1,700 kg, designed for use with both S-70i Black Hawk International and W-3 Sokół helicopters.
Additionally, the contract required the provision of a repair and training package, including training for at least 15 personnel, as well as an additional package consisting of a battery-powered autonomous release system for the bucket (eliminating the need for connection to the helicopter’s electrical system), a suspension system for the tank, a transport net, harnesses, a hook with an automatic electric release mechanism, and four Alpha 900 Rotary Wing aviation helmets or equivalent, along with protective masks for the crew chief.
Bambi Bucket firefighting baskets were used by the Polish National Police’s S-70i Black Hawks in several real-world firefighting operations, including in July 2022, during the suppression of a wildfire in Bohemian Switzerland and Saxon Switzerland National Parks near the Czech-German border; in May 2022, in combating a forest fire near Nowe Miasto nad Pilicą (Poland); and in August 2021, when the Polish Police provided firefighting assistance to Turkey upon request.
