President Obama arrived at Colorado Springs at 12:13 p.m. MT Friday, 3 hours and 20 minutes later than the White House’s schedule, then he toured the Waldo Canyon fire area and received a briefing from incident personnel. The schedule called for him to be in Colorado Springs for 2 hours and 50 minutes.
The original plans were for Air Force One to park at Peterson Air Force base on the northeast side of the Colorado Springs Airport, but instead it went to the opposite side, perhaps to avoid interfering with operations of the four military MAFFS air tankers at Peterson. The President, accompanied by Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper and several other politicians departed the airport in an SUV, rather than a helicopter.
After he looked at some of the burned areas he received a briefing about the status of the fire. Then he made a short statement, speaking contemporaneously, without notes or a teleprompter. Here are some excerpts that I transcribed from the television coverage on CNN:
…Some lessons are being learned about how we can mitigate some of these fires in the future and I know that the Mayor and the Governor and other local officials are already in those conversations. It means that hopefully out of this tragedy some long-term planning occurs and it may be that we can curb some of the damage that happens the next time even though it is obvious that we can’t fully control fires that are starting up in these mountains.
[…]
The last point I want to make, is that we can provide all the resources. We can make sure they are well coordinated. But as I just told these firefighters what we can’t do is to provide them with the courage and the determination and the professionalism, the heart that they show when they are out there battling these fires.
When we had a chance on site to see some guys who had just saved three homes in a community that had been devastated, for those families, the work and the sacrifices of those firefighters means the world to them and they are genuine heroes. So we just want to say thank you to all the folks that have been involved in this, we’re proud of you, we appreciate what you do each and every day, and for folks all around the country I hope you are reminded how important our fire departments are, our Forest Service is. Sometimes they don’t get the credit that they deserve until your house is burning down or your community is being threatened. You have to understand that they are putting their lives at risk to save us and to help us. We’ve got to make sure we remember that 365 days a year, not just when tragedies like this strike.
Below is a video clip from Friday morning’s Today Show. It provides an update on the fire including a few seconds from the cockpit of a MAFFS C-130 air tanker..
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The worst is yet to come in the West. These wildfires can be mitigated (put the frigin things out) in their early stages. Unlike tornados and floods something can be done to intervene. Mr. President maybe its time for you to say “What else can we do”? Hopefully you will get a direct and honest answer from those in charge, good luck. “Well, well ha, well ha, there our some big planes that we could try, but tah but tah we don’t know if it works on our type fires.” “Its an election year and your costing me big VOTES!” “Call Evergreen and 10 Tanker and get them started.” That second Evergreen suppression unit, “tell them (Evergreen) that we’re on our way to Mirana to “tank” Air Force One.”
Mr. President, sign an immediate action item, EXECUTIVE ORDER to protect our natural resoures, the lives of thousands (voters) and all those properties lost or going to be lost amounting to billions in property tax revenue. ” I better not catch Tanker 911 sitting on the tarmack at some remote place, you guys are in enought hot water as it is, I should be in Hawaii on vacation”.
It sounds like the Vlat has done a heck of a job from what I hear too. I wonder if Harbour will turn off their money early enough this year so they go out of business before his new fleet arrives.
Mr. President, how about the Other DC10 and
Evergreen’s 747 on exclusive contract?
MAFFS is good but not enough…
Heck I know where there are three DC7’s
that work…
I agree Johnny Coldwater. 10 TACs DC-10 T911 sat in Boise while America burned, from Monday evening June 25 to late afternoon today. In that time she was sent out once to the Dahl Fire in Montana – 1 full load 11.6k gals and that was it. Tonight she dropped another full load on the Buffalo fire in Nevada on the way back to AZ. AZ used her for 2 weeks earlier this month and she did 1 helluva job for them.
We could have used her on the White Draw fire in South Dakota today. There was only one air tanker on the fire, a single engine air tanker. There were also two contracted Type 3 helicopters and one Blackhawk from the National Guard. The fire started in the late afternoon and when I left it at about 9:45 p.m., it was still cranking. Hundreds of acres burning. And there were no large air tankers on it at any time as far as I know.
This is politics at its best. I think he thought this was a tornado or flood, that the worst is over. What else could we do for the residences of Colorado? Full might of the federal goverment is behind you, way behind you. Get the DC-10 out of Boise, send it back to Arizona, quick.