U.S. Won't Use Air Tankers for Wildfires

The Guardian (U.K.) ^ | May 10, 2004 | IRA DREYFUSS

[Stoat]

WASHINGTON (AP) - Just as the 2004 wildfire season is opening, the government on Monday grounded an aging fleet of 33 former military tankers that had been among the biggest weapons in its arsenal for fighting the blazes.

The Forest Service and the Interior Department terminated contracts with private companies for use of the planes after the National Transportation Safety Board determined their airworthiness could be not assured. Three such planes crashed between 1994 and 2002, killing seven crew members.

Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth said that, in the wake of the NTSB report, continuing to use the tankers posed ``an unacceptable risk'' to aviators, ground firefighters and communities near the blazes.

The fixed-wing planes, some of them as old as 60 years, had been used primarily in initial attacks on fires and protecting buildings when fires were moving toward urban areas, said Dan Jiron, a spokesman for the Forest Service.

He said the government still has the use of 491 other aircraft, including smaller fixed-wing planes and helicopters. ``It's serious, but we will be able to do our job,'' Jiron said.

The tankers were each capable of dumping from 1,700 to 2,500 gallons of water a minute.

The Forest Service grounded the fleet of tankers it had under contract after two crashes in 2002.

The planes were reactivated after a new inspection program was developed at the Energy Department's Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque, N.M., but the NTSB said in its report last month that maintenance and inspection programs were still inadequate.

``It was apparent that no effective mechanism currently exists to ensure the continuing airworthinesss of these firefighting aircraft,'' the report said.

Complete information on the stresses that the planes endured in firefighting was not available, the report said. Nor was there complete information on maintenance and inspection dating back to the planes' use in the military.

Investigators who reviewed the crashes in California and Colorado in 2002 said the aircrafts' wings could not take the strain. In the California crash involving a C-130A, the wings snapped off and the fuselage plunged to the ground, killing three people on board.

Planes from the now-grounded fleet probably were used to fight a current fire in California, Jiron said. ``We always use what fleet we have available to use,'' he said.

However, the planes were not used on Monday, he said.

Fires also are burning in Montana, Arizona and Minnesota. They are fueled by drought, which has been worsening in many areas in the West, drying pasturelands and leaving forests parched. The National Drought Mitigation Center's Drought Monitor now classifies the West as being in a state of exceptional drought, worse than its initial classification of abnormally dry.

The government will have to shift firefighting tactics with the loss of the 33 planes, Jiron said.

Firefighters will target blazes with helicopters and cropduster-type fixed-wing aircraft, Jiron said. These aircraft can be more accurate than the big planes when they drop their payloads, and they can resupply with water closer to the fire, he said.

The government also can activate eight military C130s equipped to carry water, he said.

``This is a loss, but it is not something we can't address now that the curtain is raising on fire season,'' Jiron said.

To the government, the loss of planes is not an insurmountable problem. Firefighters still should be able to do their inherently dangerous job ``with or without air support,'' it said.

But one aviation officer in the Forest Service, Bill Pierce, called the grounding of the 33 tankers ``a major loss'' that could raise the risks involved with firefighting.

``It's a real hazardous situation, not having the tankers,'' said Pierce of the Humboldt-Toiyabe Forest Service office in Reno, Nev.

[Carry_Okie]

you just jinxed yourself... congrats.

BS. Like you have a clue what my situation is. I've done more to save firefighters' lives than they'll ever do for mine. This place is cleared, fully roaded, and has standpipes all over it. I even set up an evac site for them. This is the one refugium with a registered helicopter landing site for over three miles.

If landowners did their jobs because insurance rates nailed them if they didn't and we got the governmint out of forest management there would be minimal need for firefighting. This whole mess is a political creation.

[AuntB]

I will read your article link. This is really hitting close to home for me this year...living in the woods instead of farmland and my son has a wonderful new girlfriend who works for the Forest Service as a firefighter. She is so very dismayed by the bureaucrats and eco freaks. She refers to the gun carrying rangers as "Twig pigs".

The rain has stopped for a bit, so I'm heading out to clear out some brush.

[discostu]

It's not a matter of 100% perfection, it's a matter of not sending up death traps. When these planes crash they're full of fuel, fuel that makes more fire, and they have an unfortunate tendency of not falling in the already burned area. What good are fire fighting airplanes that just start another fire? The big planes are too old and too beat up, fire fighting is really hard on these planes, eventually they had to be retired, better to do it now than after more crashes which we know WILL happen.

[dljordan]

I was just about to make the point about the Russian aircraft offer. I can only surmise from the governments actions that they're not really serious about containing wildfires. Our government doesn't seem to much use for anything but collecting taxes.

[lmailbvmbipfwedu]

An air tanker sounds like a good use of UAV technology....

[RayChuang88]

There's actually a few things we can do to fight wildfires:

1. Make a huge buy of Canadair CL-415 water bombers for the US Forest Service, maybe as many as 100-125 planes. The CL-415 is probably one of the best of its kind, designed specifically for the rigors of low-level flying needed for water bombing.

2. Modify a number of rebuilt C-130E/H Hercules planes to drop containers loaded with water that looks like a dodecahedron. Popular Mechanics mentioned idea this late in 2003 and they said this allows for more wider area coverage of flame-retarding water and also allow the drop plane to fly higher, too.

3. Fill artillery shells and/or short-range bombardment rockets with liquid nitrogen and fire them directly into the fire. When the shell or rocket filled with liquid nitrogen explodes in the fire, the combination of sudden extreme cold and the quick removal of oxygen to feed the flame at the impact point will quickly put out the fire. And unlike conventional fire retardants, liquid nitrogen will quickly evaporate away and not become an environmental hazard. I remember at the end of Operation Desert Storm they actually tried it out and it did work to put out the oil well fires.

[First_Salute]

"The planes were reactivated after a new inspection program was developed at the Energy Department's Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque, N.M., but the NTSB said in its report last month that maintenance and inspection programs were still inadequate."

Well, you might conclude, that, when your muffler falls off the car, and you go to the telephone company to fix it, that "maintenance and inspection programs were still inadequate."

You see how easy it is, at times, to spot the "39%" in the Bush [still running 39% of the Clinton] Administration?

It is on this note, that I take my leave.

See you in a couple months.

[hybrid007]

Those c-130's were never designed to air-drop loads like that in wildfire updrafts. In the late 60's many of those planes had special splices installed over the wing strut connections over the fuselage, exactly where it broke off of the tanker. Vietnam had short airstrips and they were rough. The C-130's occaisionally pulled 9-10 G's on landing and their wings flopped liked goony birds. You could see what was going on. When they x-rayed them in Japan they found 1/4-1/2 inch breaks in the Main wing spars. We had one plane per month go to Japan for the "Special fix". Anyone with a brain knew what was happening. None of those poor souls contracting with those old planes knew about the reports. They probably weren't told about them when they bought the planes. I wonder haw many of them had the "Special Fix" done to them?

[snopercod]

God speed.

[cartoonistx]

My son, who is a Helitack wildland fire fighter for the USFS out of Ramona,Ca., has been informed that their group will be doing the "heavy lifting" in the San Diego area this year because of the Airtanker groundings. I was allowed to climb aboard one of those flying dinosaurs last year when we visited his airbase after the Cedar fire in October. Talk about being held together with bailing wire! That DC4 was practically shedding rivets as we stood there.

[cartoonistx]

It is not the firefighters who sue every time some agency suggests that 500 trees to the acre is too many for forest health and safety, but more often than not, it is the forest dwellers themselves, worried that their beautiful, thick forest will be overtrimmed by those "evil" loggers. It is not the Hotshots or the seasonal handcrews that cry about the "endangered" rat species or the "rare" ragweeds that might be disturbed by "excessivley wide and ugly" fire breaks carved into the wildlands and forests near homes and communities. Whatever you may think you know about the political forces at work in the USFS beauracracy, don't blame the people who are sent to stop "the beast" when it ignites!

[Carry_Okie]

It is not the firefighters who sue every time some agency suggests that 500 trees to the acre is too many for forest health and safety, but more often than not, it is the forest dwellers themselves, worried that their beautiful, thick forest will be overtrimmed by those "evil" loggers.

It's not the residents who provide them an ideology, organize them, pay their lawyers, advertise, or fill the hours of Animal Planet, it's powerful NGOs that are fed big bucks from tax-exempt "charitable" foundations, the owners of which often have a profit interest in competing investments, either substitute goods or sources abroad.

Whatever you may think you know about the political forces at work in the USFS beauracracy, don't blame the people who are sent to stop "the beast" when it ignites!

Inasmuch as I have met more than one crew who worked hard and took appropriate risks, all I can say is, read the account of the Winter Fire. The USFS fire crews and contractors are not what they once were. Too many are bureaucratic, unionized, and looking for overtime.

[First_Salute]

You, too.

[hchutch]

Agreed. Problem is, getting new planes costs money.

And Congress seems to think there are more important things to spend money on.

Penny-wise, and pound foolish.

[Poohbah]

Suggested reading: John J. Nance's Fire Wind. Fiction, but based on fact.

BTW, the C-130A they mentioned lost its wings in straight and level flight.

[forester]

This is not a good developement. Many roads in our area were not repaired after the New Years day flood of 1997, so many have been decommisioned via lack of maintenance. Recent snowpack measurements show our area has 60-70% of average, not a drought, but combined with the early spring that we have had, could prove to be a bad combination.

Other areas of the west are in far worse shape...

[Carry_Okie]

Other areas of the west are in far worse shape...

Utah, Northern Arizona, Southern Colorado, and New Mexico are all in drought stressed condition, never mind the overstocking. Yep, it sucks all righty. The Forest Service doesn't seem to care either.

[COEXERJ145]

All we need are some of these Russian beauties.

[forester]

Check the moniker on the russian plane in post#58 "Global Emergency Response" What do you make of that?

[Stoat]

Thank you all so very much for your great posts! I've read them all and really appreciate the thought and oftentimes the tremendous expertise that is evident in the posts. I found a related article today that readers on this thread might enjoy, so I'll just post it here rather than start a new thread with it. If anyone thinks that it's REALLY newsworthy you're welcome to post it as a new thread yourself if you like. If you do, you might want to provide a link over to this thread so that new readers can see the great links, photos and posts that everyone here has contributed. Here's the article: Loss of air tankers may affect wildfires - Experts applaud putting safety first Loss of air tankers may affect wildfires - Experts applaud puttingsafety first Copyright 2004 The Post Register Idaho Falls Post Register (Idaho Falls, Idaho) May 12, 2004 Wednesday Idaho fire experts believe the decision to terminate contracts for 33 large air tankers will have a definite impact on national fire operations, but most applaud the federal agencies' decision to put safety first. The decision announced Monday is in response to a National Traffic Safety Board report on three air tanker accidents that occurred between 1994 and 2002. The report determined the federal government's maintenance and inspection procedures for firefighting air tankers were inadequate. The loss of large air tanker support could result in more wildfires escaping initial attack and becoming "large, problem fires," former Bureau of Land Manager aviation manager Hugh Carson said. "Air tankers are a very important tool in the tool box. It's not just another tool we can easily do without," he said. "No amount of single engine air tankers or helicopters can replace the key role that air tankers play." The National Interagency Fire Center in Boise will still be able to call on eight military C-130 tankers that have been modified to provide fire support. Two of the firefighting C-130s are available at bases in North Carolina, California, Wyoming and Colorado, Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke of the National Guard Bureau said. The eight aircraft are not dedicated exclusively to fires, and because of the massive deployments to Iraq the military has had to prioritize aircraft use. But, the aircraft should be able to respond when requested, Krenke said. In the past, military aircraft have only been requested when the center is at its highest level of fire danger. Carson said it will be tough to face an extreme fire year without tanker support but that the Forest Service did the right thing. Forest Service and Department of Interior officials say they are trying to develop a strategy to purchase newer aircraft, something Carson said is long overdue. "Clearly the days of operating older aircraft of unknown airworthiness for firefighting operations are over," Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth said in a statement. Gina Knudson, who covers Lemhi and Custer counties for the Post Register, can be reached through Assistant Managing Editor Margaret Wimborne at 542-6757.