Firefighting tankers spread thin
Firefighting tankers spread thin
11 December 2012
published by www.durangoherald.com
USA — WASHINGTON The U.S. Forest Service is in desperate need of additional firefighting air tankers, and future climate change could stretch already depleted resources.
Last week, NASA scientists met at the annual American Geophysical Union to discuss forest fires and climate change. If carbon emissions continue at current rates, scientists predict an increase in fire risk across the United States. Widespread fires, like those in 2012, would likely occur three to four times per decade by then, instead of once per decade, said Doug Morton of NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
Doug McBee, executive director of Colorado State Fire Chiefs, said the wildfire season, which used to end in October, appears to be expanding to year-round. This year, the U.S. Forest Service has had to return resources to combat the fires.
When a fire breaks out, air tankers are flown to contain it. The Forest Service typically starts sending contracted air tankers in mid-February and returning them by mid-November, said Forest Service spokeswoman Jennifer Jones. If a fire breaks out before or after that period, the Forest Service delivers tankers available on optional-use periods. Currently, the Forest Service has two large air tankers in service that normally would be grounded. Still, there are no plans to change the schedule of availability for the tankers, Jones said.
Though demand is clearly rising, the number of air tankers available to the Forest Service has plummeted over the last decade. In 2002, the Forest Service had 42 tankers available compared to 11 in 2012.
The fleet has diminished after crashes and reductions from aircraft that could not meet safety standards. Much of the aging fleet is made up of planes such as P2V-7s, aluminum bombers from World War II, one of which crashed in June in Utah. Bloomberg Businessweek reported that from June to July alone this year, three planes crashed, leaving six dead.
When the Forest Service is using its full supply of tankers, the Air National Guard steps in to provide them with more planes. In 2012, the Air National Guard supplied eight military C-130 planes. Although the C-130s are newer, a crash killed four men while fighting a fire in South Dakota in July, marking the first wildfire crash for the Air National Guard since the 1970s.
Contracts are pending for modernized tankers that would allow the Forest Service to expand its fleet in 2013. However, Jones said the Forest Service will continue supplementing its fleet in 2013 with C-130s. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., recently called for air-tanker modernization in a November letter to the Senate subcommittee overseeing the Forest Service appropriations.
Last week, a law passed giving the Forest Service and the Coast Guard priority to surplus C-27Js from the Department of Defense.
This allows the Forest Service to acquire 14 C-27Js to enhance its diminished firefighting fleet at no cost to the Air Force or Forest Service, according to the Helicopter Association International. The C-27Js, manufactured in 2007, would become the newest planes on the Forest Service fleet. But over the summer, the Air Force grounded its entire C-27Js fleet as a precautionary measure after a mechanical failure on one flight.
The failure was in the forest areas.Advertisement
Following a 10-year strategy, ACT fire managers have created a mosaic across the landscape of different fuel levels, burning at every opportunity.
But forests have been too wet to burn this spring and the past two summers.
Read more:http://www.canberratimes.com.au/environment/red-alert-for-high-risk-of-fires-20121118-29koa.html#ixzz2CmafUgo3
The failure was in the forest areas.Advertisement
Following a 10-year strategy, ACT fire managers have created a mosaic across the landscape of different fuel levels, burning at every opportunity.
But forests have been too wet to burn this spring and the past two summers.
Read more:http://www.canberratimes.com.au/environment/red-alert-for-high-risk-of-fires-20121118-29koa.html#ixzz2CmafUgo3
The failure was in the forest areas.Advertisement
Following a 10-year strategy, ACT fire managers have created a mosaic across the landscape of different fuel levels, burning at every opportunity.
But forests have been too wet to burn this spring and the past two summers.
Read more:http://www.canberratimes.com.au/environment/red-alert-for-high-risk-of-fires-20121118-29koa.html#ixzz2CmafUgo3
Two summers of unprecedented rain and unusually cool temperatures have left a large fuel load of grass and unburnt forest areas in and around Canberra.
A network of 500 fire trails and strategic burns along the north-west urban edge, heavy grazing and extra grass slashing will create a fortress for the territory which forecasters say faces a higher than average risk this summer.
After a fire-fuelled tornado in January 2003 killed four Canberrans and frightened thousands more, CSIRO fire expert Phil Cheney told the subsequent inquiry the fire’s penetration into urban areas under extreme conditions did not reflect a failure of fuel management on the urban interface.
Read more:http://www.canberratimes.com.au/environment/red-alert-for-high-risk-of-fires-20121118-29koa.html#ixzz2CmaXNjum
The failure was in the forest areas.Advertisement
Following a 10-year strategy, ACT fire managers have created a mosaic across the landscape of different fuel levels, burning at every opportunity.
But forests have been too wet to burn this spring and the past two summers.
