{"id":55332,"date":"2013-05-07T21:26:42","date_gmt":"2013-05-08T03:26:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/more-air-tankers-but-not-in-2013\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T19:30:28","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T19:30:28","slug":"more-air-tankers-but-not-in-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/more-air-tankers-but-not-in-2013\/","title":{"rendered":"More air tankers, but not in 2013"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Slurry
Slurry is dropped around a house in East Springs last year. The state is trying to find funding for its own slurry bombers.<\/span>Sam Green\/Cortez Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

WASHINGTON \u2013 The U.S. Forest Service plans to award more than $158 million in five-year contracts for new firefighting air tankers soon, according to an agency official.<\/p>\n

The seven \u201cNext Generation\u201d large air tankers would supplement the aging, diminished fleet of eight aircraft currently in service, with the ultimate goal of phasing the older planes out altogether.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are moving ahead to modernize our fleet as part of our overall strategy to secure the best, safest air tankers available for fighting wildfires across the country in the years to come,\u201d Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell said in a statement. \u201cIt is critical that we complete the \u2018Next Generation\u2019 air tanker contracting effort as quickly as possible as we face the prospect of another challenging wildfire season with a dwindling legacy air tanker fleet.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is the latest step in a nearly year-long saga to get these new tankers into the air.<\/p>\n

Last June, President Barack Obama signed a law to expedite the process to award these contracts, the Herald previously reported.<\/p>\n

Nine companies submitted proposals for seven tankers, and the Forest Service selected four companies in June.<\/p>\n

But contractors\u2019 protests forced a do-over.<\/p>\n

On Monday, the agency announced it had issued a \u201cnotice of intent\u201d to award five-year contracts to five companies for seven tankers.<\/p>\n

But the Forest Service can\u2019t immediately dole out the contracts. First there\u2019s a period where the companies involved can challenge the Forest Service\u2019s decisions.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s the period where the Forest Service first ran into problems last time around.<\/p>\n

Forest Service Director of Fire and Aviation Management Tom Harbour said he couldn\u2019t speculate if there would be protests again this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t know,\u201d Harbour said in a telephone interview Monday. \u201cWe just don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hope to get through this fairly quickly and hope to get these airplanes flying,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The agency currently has eight large air tankers under exclusive-use contracts for 2013. In 2000, the Forest Service had 43 large air tankers available.<\/p>\n

Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., has lobbied for these air tankers through legislation and a January letter to U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. The Forest Service is part of the Department of Agriculture.<\/p>\n

Udall\u2019s office sent out a strongly worded press release Monday imploring the companies not to protest the contracts, urging that they \u201cput lives before legal disputes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI understand that the contractors have concerns about dollars and cents on these contracts, but Coloradans\u2019 lives and properties are on the line,\u201d Udall said in the statement.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve heard it could happen again,\u201d Udall spokesman Mike Saccone said of possible protests. \u201cAnother protest could set us back weeks, if not months.\u201d<\/p>\n

The current fleet of air tankers is more than 50 years old, and half of the fleet will face mandatory retirement within a decade.<\/p>\n

The agency\u2019s goal is to have these seven tankers in the air by the end of 2013, Harbour said. The overall objective is to have 18 to 28 large air tankers in service in the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur intention is to transition out of the old aircraft and into the new aircraft,\u201d Harbour said.<\/p>\n

The Forest Service expects there to be fire problems in the southern half of Colorado in the upcoming wildfire season, Harbour said.<\/p>\n

In 2012, six civilians died in wildfires in Colorado, according to Udall\u2019s January letter to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.<\/p>\n

Nearly 400,000 acres burned and 648 structures were lost in the state because of wildfires, the letter said, including in the High Park and Waldo Canyon fires.<\/p>\n

Frustrated by the shrunken federal air tanker fleet, a few Colorado state legislators attempted to create the state\u2019s own firefighting fleet. Their Senate Bill 245 appeared to be on its way to passage Monday, but without the money to actually fund the fleet or hire pilots.<\/p>\n

Instead, the bill creates an aerial firefighting division, whose first task will be to write a report on whether it makes sense for Colorado to buy its own planes. The report is due to the Legislature next April.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen a partner brings strength into our partnership,\u201d Harbour said, \u201cWe\u2019re always happy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Staff writer Joe Hanel contributed to this report from Denver.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Contractors’ protests have delayed plans<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":55333,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[402,350,918],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-55332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-drought","tag-fire","tag-forests"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55332"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55332\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57219,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55332\/revisions\/57219"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55332"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=55332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}