COLORADO SPRINGS (AP) – Forty-eight percent of the time that firefighters asked for air-tanker support in their fight against wildfires across the United States last year, they didn’t come.
Those numbers included requests for the 11 large aerial tankers – and this year there are only eight of those.
As temperatures rise and the threat of wildfire nears, firefighters and experts are concerned that the nation’s stock of large firefighting tankers is insufficient to keep smaller fires from burgeoning into megafires.
The U.S. Forest Service has three fewer large tankers on contract than it did at the beginning of the 2012 wildfire season, according to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho.
And just as last year – when the fleet was a quarter of the size that it was a decade ago – the agency is poised to rely heavily on loaned planes and yet-to-be-awarded contracts.
The agency leans on its Defense Department counterparts and planes on loan from Canada and Alaska to drop retardant intended to slow advancing flames.
And tanker businesses are awaiting word on a contract to fund a fleet of newer, faster large air tankers – a plan that came undone last year amid a contract dispute.
In 2012, national fire dispatch centers received 914 requests from fire commanders for air tankers – basically, planes bigger than their single-engine counterparts, according to the 2012 annual report from the Boise fire center. Each time a request was logged – even if it was for more than one plane – dispatchers made a note.
Last year, dispatchers were able fill 346 of those requests with civilian tankers, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Another 63 requests were filled by military planes and 67 requests were canceled, the report shows. That meant 438 requests – 48 percent – went unfilled, the report says.
The reasons requests went unfilled vary – planes were down for maintenance or fighting fire elsewhere, or crews were getting required rest, said Mike Ferris, spokesman for the Boise fire center.
But the availability – or lack thereof – of those tankers has concerned some Colorado firefighters.
“It would be nice to be able to sit here and tell you that we have that the availability 100 percent of the time,” said Paul Cooke, director of the Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control. “That’s just not the case.
Waiting for the next generation
The current number of large air tankers isn’t representative of the force that Forest Service officials expect to field by this summer, said Scott Fisher, the aviation management specialist for the U.S. Forest Service.
By June, the agency expects to have 15 large air tankers – capable of carrying 1,800 to 3,000 gallons of retardant – on exclusive-use contracts.
In addition, the Forest Service expects to have contracts for three very large air tankers – capable of carrying more than 3,000 gallons of retardant, such as DC-10 aircraft.
They are part of an array of aerial resources that firefighters rely on each year. This year, that includes more than 100 helicopters under contract with the U.S. Forest Service, as well as a fleet of smaller, single-engine tankers overseen by other federal agencies.
This year, the Forest Service expects to bolster the current force of eight planes with seven aircraft commonly referred to as the “next generation” of tankers – a faster, turbine-powered fleet capable of dropping more gallons of retardant during every flight.
The Forest Service awarded those contracts last summer. But a contract dispute over maintenance issues and an appeal by a company whose contract was canceled meant none was deployed over any fires – leading companies to re-submit proposals.
Fisher said the Forest Service does not expect the contracts to be delayed again.
“I’m not sure what other alternative we have,” Fisher said. “We go after the process to contract, and it’s our expectation that those aircraft will come on.”
Firefighters and industry observers, however, have been more skeptical.
Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., said he will “be on the doorstep of the Secretary of Agriculture” if the contracts aren’t let this year.
“I’m concerned but optimistic,” Udall said. “… I know they (contractors) have legitimate concerns about dollars and cents. I’m also concerned about lives and homes.”
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