Fire or flood, flood or fire?

“In my mind,” says Staff Sgt. Brian Calloway of the Army National Guard’s helicopter unit at the Rowan County Airport, “flood or fire — it’s all the same.”

Both devastate the land, the property.

Hurt people.

Leave scars that stay.

And he knows because he’s seen both up close.

A year ago he and his helicopter crew dropped food, medicine and supplies of all kinds to people in eastern North Carolina suffering through the horrors of flood waters whipped up by Hurricane Floyd.

This year he and his crew dropped water on forest fires in Texas hill country east of Austin.

And he was glad to go, glad to have a chance to pay back a kindness.

“Texas sent aircraft for Floyd,” he says. “They assisted us. They actually took the time to help us. But whether they helped us or not, I would have gone. I think it’s basically an act of brotherhood to help each other out in times like this. It’s bad to see any of them, but we get called out ... ”

The call was the first time he’d heard about trouble in Texas. He’d heard about Wyoming and Montana. “But I didn’t know Texas was in that condition until we got the notice to go. The National Guard down there has been helping since about June. We were there to relieve them so they could get some rest.”

And the work they did, says Aaron Reed, public affairs director for the Texas National Guard, is “some of the hottest, most dangerous work Army Black Hawk crews do outside of a war zone. We appreciated their willingness to help the people of Texas, and their efforts on two major fires in the Hill Country made a real difference.”

More than half a million acres of dry Texas land has burned since the beginning of the year as a result of the worst drought in more than a decade and searing three-digit temperatures. The fires have taken one life and 32 homes — and threatened about 2,500 more, which prompted a call for help from other agencies in mid-July.

Since then Guard helicopters from all over the country have flown over 5,300 missions and dropped more than 5 million gallons of water in 660-gallon “Bambi” buckets that hang suspended about 20 feet beneath the choppers.

Finally, a cold front and rain — a lot of rain — swept through the state last weekend, significantly lowering the fire danger, and all helicopters have been taken off active duty.

And four members of a Rowan crew of a UH-60 Black Hawk is home again.

Included are two full time Guardsmen — crew chief Calloway, who lives in Huntersville but works as a mechanic at the Army Aviation Support facility here, and Chief Warrant Officer Steve Kittrell of Salisbury, a full time test pilot with the 130th Aviation unit.

Also on the Texas trip were two other pilots, Chief Warrant Officer Al Paterno of Salisbury, a highway patrolman, who’s with the 159th Aviation unit; and Lt. Michele Peeler, a Charlotte teacher, who’s attached to the 449th headquarters group in Kinston.

And none of them will ever forget the fires in Texas.

“It was pretty much a first time for me,” Calloway says.

“We were on our way back from some missions up in the mountains,” he says, “when we were asked if anyone was interested in going to Texas to help in the fire fighting.”

In no time they were on an eight-hour flight to Texas, assigned to a unit out of Austin — and at work.

“We’d go to a nearby lake or river, whichever was closest,” Calloway says, “and hover while the bucket was sinking to the water. Then we’d lift out and go to the fire. One bucket is over 600 gallons of water, so it’s a fairly decent load.”

Most of the fires they worked were within a mile of a lake or river.

“Once the pilot would get close to the flame itself,” he says, “he would give command to drop the water.”

And Calloway, the crew chief, would release the switch, and the water would pour out.

“When I saw the first fire I had ever been to, I thought it was pretty devastating. The terrain was pretty black. I had never seen anything like that. The fire meant — it had changed their community a whole lot, and I’m sure that’s devastating.

“The ones we fought were about 10, 15 feet high. They reported some flames as high as 40 feet above the trees. We fought lower flames and a lot of smoldering.

“There were isolated fires everywhere,” he says. “I felt like, once we dropped the water, we were really helping them out. We were dropping a decent amount of water and it was real effective.

“Once we did a lot of water drops, we would land and eat something on the ground with the firefighters themselves. They were real appreciative. They had the roughest job. It felt good that we were helping them out. Putting out one fire would help a lot.”

They dropped 28 to 30 buckets of water during eight-hour flying days.

“Just a couple days before we got there, it was real severe. Some days they had dropped as many as 80, 90 buckets in a day. What we did was maintain the condition.

“I felt like we helped them get a handle on it. We were there to help them maintain some kind of stability.

“I’m sure the bigger the fire, the more heat, but as far as severe heat was concerned, it wasn’t that bad. You water as you’re in motion over the fires, so you don’t stay in that heat environment very long.”

Calloway went to both Hurricane Dennis and Hurricane Floyd last year.

“We were on call for any kind of emergency situation, in case anybody was stranded, and then we concentrated on supplying people with food and water, and moving around shift folks, like people who worked at power plants. We did a lot of shuttling employees to fight the floods. We were down there about two weeks of 18 hour days.”

And they flew dignitaries — city council members, state officials — there to assess the damage.

“The president was in the area while I was at Floyd. At times we flew the general around.”

He hesitates, thinking about that duty.

“Floyd was devastating,” he says. “You pray for people. And help. Helping people is what it’s all about.”

Getting food to them was basic.

“We’d land and unload it. A lot of times people assisted, made a line, and we could get unloaded pretty fast.”

“The thing about Floyd and Dennis and these fires, when you’re helping people, you don’t really think about the time. Other missions can get lengthy, but when you’re helping people who really need it, it’s kind of a different feeling.

“We saw fires that got real close to homes. Some homes were burned. It seemed like in the Austin area, where we were more concentrated fighting fires, as a whole the fire departments had done a good job keeping the fires away from homes.”

But further out ...

He’ll remember how grateful the firefighters were in Texas.

“The Red Cross was there, supporting us. They gave us food to take with us. It felt good, to assist them.

“Anything that devastating changes people’s lives.”

He hesitates, thinking.

His wife, Rita, he says, works part time for a greenhouse in Charlotte and full-time at home with 13-year-old Brian and 4-year-old Briana, when he’s home and when he’s far away.

“And I’m just glad she puts up with me,” he says. “She knows that if it was happening to us, we’d want people to help. She’s very supportive.”

She understands.

“Iwouldn’t want to be in either one of them,” he says.

Not fire nor flood.