Updated at 1:44 p.m. MT, February 20, 2013
Since the U.S. Forest Service has not awarded any new contracts for next-generation, legacy, or very large air tankers and all existing contracts expired December 31, 2012, this left none available as the wildland fire season began in the southwest United States.
In order to mitigate this self-inflicted crisis, the USFS just extended Neptune’s 2012 expired contract through March 5 and Minden’s contract through April 22, according to information from Jennifer Jones of the agency’s office in Boise. The contract for the DC-10 has also been extended.
Red Flag Warnings have been issued three times this week for extreme wildland fire danger in New Mexico and western Texas.
It as has been 1 year, 2 months, and 20 days since the U.S. Forest Service issued a solicitation for next-generation large air tankers, but no contracts have been awarded. Also waiting for a decision from the USFS are solicitations for 50+ year-old legacy air tankers and very large air tankers, such as the DC-10 and 747.
We inquired with the USFS about another product we are waiting on, the result of the $380,000 study that was supposed to have been completed in November by AVID that would “identify the appropriate number and types of aviation resources necessary to effectively meet future fire management needs”. This is the sixth air tanker study in the last 17 years.
Ms. Jones told us “the study has been completed and the Forest Service is currently reviewing it. When the review is completed, the report will be released to the public. No date has been set for that at this time.”
If it is released, it will be a pleasant change from how the USFS treated the last air tanker study, the RAND air tanker report which was stamped top secret. RAND released their $840,092 report July 30, 2012 two years after it was completed, but as far as we know the USFS never did, even after a Freedom of Information Act Request. The agency told Wildfire Today “…the report is proprietary and confidential RAND business information and must be withheld in entirety under FOIA Exemption 4″.
This article was updated at 1:44 p.m. MT, February 20, 2013, providing more information about the AVID air tanker study.
