The federal government is reducing the numbers of large air tankers and helicopters on exclusive use contracts. Air tankers are being cut from 20 to 13, and Type 1 helicopters over the last year have been reduced from 34 to 28. Cutting back on these firefighting resources is not going to enhance our ability to suppress new fires before they become large, dangerous, and expensive.

You can’t fight fires on the cheap.
.
Sometimes “cheap” is too expensive.

— Wildfire Today ? (@wildfiretoday) February 24, 2018