Los Angeles County leaders on Tuesday are poised to approve a $29.4 million agreement for a pair of custom-modified military helicopters to help bulk up the region’s aerial fire-fighting fleet.

If the plan is approved, the county would lease the two Sikorsky S70i Black Hawks for 10 years, then have the option to buy them. Fire officials have said the helicopters can easily siphon 1,000 gallons of water and swoop into hard-to-reach areas to help battle raging wildfires.

“These new aircraft will provide upgraded operational capabilities to meet current and anticipated future mission requirements,” the Los Angeles County Fire Department said in a staff report.

For more than a decade, the department operated a fleet of nine “multi-mission helicopters,” including three Sikorsky S70a Firehawks and six Bell 412 helicopters. But in 2015, the department lost a Bell after it was damaged in an accident.

After the damage wreaked by last year’s Sand Fire, deemed the worst blaze in the area in a decade, former Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael Antonovich requested that the county fire department prepare a report assessing its aircraft program and whether the county should buy or secure a year-around lease on additional aircrafts, including Super Scoopers.

The Sand Fire scorched more than 41,000 acres in and around the Santa Clarita Valley, forced 20,000 people to evacuate, destroyed 18 homes and killed one person. The two Super Scoopers that the county leases each year were unavailable at the time, and the cost to battle the blaze came to $30 million.

An aviation consulting firm hired for the report found that the fire department’s aerial fire-fighting fleet could benefit from “five S70 Fire Hawk helicopters on high fire hazard days.”

The board of supervisors’ vote Tuesday comes as the region has been facing an already-active wildfire season because of dry weather, hot temperatures, wind and high brush that has grown in the wake of last season’s heavy rain.

“Approval of the recommended actions will allow the District’s helicopter fleet to meet the ever increasing emergency response challenges associated with protecting lives and property,” according to the fire department’s staff report to the board.