Burnin' Down the House

Red tape fuels forest fires

Reposted from 10/12/06

Second reposting 10/21/07

Recently, the DC-10, you see on the left, was successfully used in California, to battle the massive 'Day Fire' in SoCal, which is still burning. This fire will be one of the largest forest fires in this nations history, already burning nearly 300,000 acres on state and federal land. The fire started on Labor Day and is costing $1,000,000 a day to fight.

This was the debut of jet fire fighting in the United States. The DC-10 is capable of carrying over four times as much water as conventional air tankers and has a much faster turnaround time. It does the job of five C-130 Hercules tankers. But it is only allowed to fight fires on state land.

After the crash of two C-130s two years ago, due to wing fatigue, the Federal government has all but banned the entrance of any new aircraft into the fire fighting arena. Which federal bureacracy is holding this advance up?

The United States Forest Service. The USFS is responsible for contracting fire fighting equipment, such as trucks, tractors and crews on fires on federal land. They are requiring additional inspections, above and beyond those for regular commercial aircraft, thereby imposing an almost insurmountable barrier to bringing the DC-10 and even more advanced air tankers online.

Four years ago, a fire burned in Southern Oregon, in terrain that was  without any roads and almost impassable, for two months. At that time, the Russians offered the use of two of their huge Ilyushin-76TD 'Waterbombers' to the USFS. The offer was declined. The Forest Service stated that the Russian craft were designed to fight fires in Siberia, in relatively flat terrain. Even though, the Waterbombers had been successfully used for years thoughout Russia in all terrains.

  The Russians apparently think more of their forests than us, for they have now developed an even more advanced jet platform with which to fight fires. An amphibious jet. The Beriev BE-200. Because it is amphibious, it requires no airfield, therefore eliminating long turnarounds for fueling, allowing it to stay on the fire much longer. The BE-200 has been ordered by several European nations and used recently in Greece. One U.S. company, Hawkins&Powers, has signed a letter of intent to purchase 8 of these craft. H&P is at this writing financially unable to fufill this agreement, and is near bankruptcy.

Evergreen Aviation, is developing the 747 Supertanker. And while, much larger and able to carry 3 times as much as the DC-10 and not nearly as difficult to certify, the Supertanker costs 20 times as much and is unable to work in as rugged terrain, and more importantly, unable to work out of rural airfields. Most forest fires burn far from urban airfields with long enough runways to support the 747. Thus the turnaround time is greatly extended.

So, we have the Russians willing to let us use a tried and true firefighter and we decline.

We have a US company, which was practically founded by the C.I.A. (Evergreen Aviation), building a Supertanker, which will have limited potential.

And  we have a tried and true workhorse of an aircraft, the DC-10, readily available, easily refitted, very well adapted to all but the most rugged terrain, able to land and takeoff from most airfields and any number of qualified pilots available - already equiped to fight fires NOW. And the DC-10 has proven itself on actual fires in front of thousands of television viewers via news footage of the Day Fire.

And yet, the United States Forest Service continues to stand in the way of putting out the fire.

Author's note. Why is this? While it should come as no surprise, the US government is so wrapped up in redtape, that it has almost ceased to function, this question of fire fighting tankers is one that will become more pressing each year. This is due to the protections for the spotted owl and disallowance of clear-cutting and recent court decisions barring the building of roads into national forest land. All of these factors contribute to an ever denser and more vulnerable forest. The fires will move faster, burn more, destroy more habitat, buildings and wildlife. Being unable to improve the equipment with which to fight these future fires will result in the destruction of all of that which those many regulations sought to protect.

It is analogous to requiring on the New York City Fire Department use horse drawn equipment..Editor's Note: This is reposted from 10/12/06 - Ironic, isn't it?.Update: Nothing's changed, except Hawkins&Powers went belly up. The DC-10 is still the only jet tanker.And the fire season just started.Sad, huh?Spread the word! 

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Comments

[akronin]

Dude, no offense or anything, but 300,000 acres really ain't all that big a fire. Certainly, nnwhere near big enough for largest in the nation's history. That's about the size of an average brush fire in the interior of Alaska.

We generally have about 5-6,000,000,000 acres burn in a season. Yes, that's million. The largest single fire we have is generally several hundred thousand acres. We've had fires the size of Nevada burning. That's not an exaggeration either.

Yes, a fire near a neighborhood is a scary and dangerous thing and I'm sure the poor helpless folks in Cali are all a-twitter and uncertain and in dire need of 'media attention'... but please...

The largest in our nation's history? C'mon... They're kidding, right? Maybe the largest in that state's history, but not even a patch on what we have on a regular basis here. Unless they're talking percentage-wise, maybe.

http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/32277/newsDate/1-Sep-2005/story.htm

Just a quick article on last year's fires.

[Steel]

Check Guinness, amigo.

The Tillamook Burn was almost 400K.

Burnt everthing from just outside Portland to almost the coast and from 3 to 12 miles wide.

By my reading, it ranks as #3 in history. The top two burnt a lot of grass, besides trees. The Tillamook was all harvestable timber. Sitka spruce, actually.

There have been lots of fires near 300K, but the Day Fire ain't out yet and Santa Annas are just getting started.

And you KNOW I wasn't including Alaska.

You guys torch more on purpose than we lose in total in the lower 48, every year.

[oldcatman]

It's not the size of a fires but the amount ofdamage it does.

You can have a 10000 acres fire that destroys 100s of homes versus a 100000 acre first that the burnsopen country.

[Jim Mcfalls]

I just hope the Missisippi river stops it before it gets to me.

[Oldcatman]

I understand the "problem" right now is the "firefighters " have run out of resources --man power.

It has been suggested that European firefighters will come in help. (And if the Russians offer fire-fighting airplanes, we better damn well accept their offer this time!)

I repeat what I said in 10/07--"size" doesn't matter--it's the damage within the "size" of the fire......

[No one]

Stumbled across this a little late for the discussion... but forest fires are a good thing - they do not so much destroy habitat and wildlife but renew forests and re-vitalize ecosystems. Many plants depend on burns to germinate, or revitalize the soil, or open up the forest for new growth.