Global Supertanker Retardant Delivery System. Image by Global Supertanker.
A company that provides aircraft for lease has purchased the retardant delivery system (RDS) formerly in the 747 Supertanker. Logistic Air is now the owner of the tanking system that for years had interim approval by the federal government’s Interagency Airtanker Board (IAB) to be used in an air tanker.
Global Supertanker’s recently modified website proudly proclaims “Returning to Service in 2022.”
Screengrab from GlobalSupertanker.biz Sept. 3, 2021.
Many of the photos of aircraft on Logistic Air’s website are 747s, but they provide wide-body and narrow-body passenger and cargo aircraft for world-wide operations.
The eight fluid tanks were inspected, tested, painted, and mounted to cargo pallets before being installed in the last version of the Supertanker in 2016. Photo by Global Supertanker.
The SuperTanker’s RDS is comprised of approximately 20 tanks that hold retardant and enough compressed air to pump the retardant out of the four nozzles that were in the belly of the huge aircraft. At various times the air tanker had interim certification by the IAB to carry 20,000, 19,200 and 17,500 gallons of retardant. The IAB and the US Forest Service appeared to bend over backwards to find reasons to not issue full approval to the aircraft and the RDS.
Retardant comes out of four nozzles on the belly of the Supertanker. Photo by Bill Gabbert.
Earlier this year the SuperTanker’s drop controlling system and other components were significantly modified to improve the delivery of retardant, including metering the volume dispersed based on the ground speed of the aircraft. It then went through dozens of tests on the ground. The operators were waiting for it to be scheduled for the IAB’s grid or cup test which measures the amount of retardant that hits the ground over a large grid. But before that took place, the owner, Alterna Capital, shut down the company and sold the aircraft and the RDS to two companies. The 747 was purchased by National Airlines to be used as a freighter, and Logistic Air bought the RDS.
747 SuperTanker makes demonstration water drop in Colorado Springs, May 14, 2016. Photo by Bill Gabbert.
A person at Alterna Capital who was not authorized to speak for the company told Fire Aviation that Global Supertanker had approximately two dozen employees and contractors when the doors closed and none of them are working for the new owners at this time. The person said Alterna “will support Logistic Air in any way we can.”
Calls to Logistic Air were not immediately returned.
UPDATE at 6:27 p.m. PDT Sept. 3, 2021
After this was published we received a call from a person at Logistic Air who asked to remain anonymous. They confirmed that the company plans to install the RDS in a nose-loading 747-200 when the aircraft completes maintenance after the first of the year. The aircraft itself will have to be modified, of course, to enable loading retardant and compressed air, and the plumbing and belly nozzles need to be installed. Then they will schedule a grid test, which they are confident it will pass. The final and most important step is applying for and receiving a new contract from the US Forest Service, no easy feat. We were told that some of the former employees of GlobalSupertanker are expected to work with the new organization.
Air Tanker 944, a 747-400, drops near structures on the Palmer Fire south of Yucaipa, California at 4:25 p.m. PDT September 2, 2017. Photo by Leroy Leggitt, used with permission.
BLM engine crew members mopping up on the BLM Trout Springs Prescribed Fire in southwest Idaho, Sept. 13, 2019. BLM photo.
The Bureau of Land Management is implementing direction from Congress to convert hundreds of their employees who fight wildland fires from seasonal to permanent status. Most of the federal government’s wildland firefighters are inappropriately in positions titled Forestry Technician or Range Technician.
Historically, the BLM’s wildland fire workforce was seasonally based. However, a new model is intended to address the escalating workforce needs due to climate change intensifying fire activity. In a news release the BLM said this model will also provide employees with career stability and upward mobility to promote work-life balance and long-term careers in wildfire or resource management.
The BLM received $13 million in its 2021 fiscal year budget which began October 1, 2020 to begin workforce transformation, which involves adding 76 new firefighters and support personnel who sustain the wildland fire management mission. The BLM will also convert 428 existing seasonal positions to permanent and/or year-round positions. Overall, the U.S. Department of the Interior received $29 million to carry out “DOI’s Plan to Transform the Firefighting Workforce.”
Other agencies in the DOI with wildland firefighting responsibilities are National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, and Bureau of Indian Affairs. The US Forest Service also has thousands of Forestry Technicians whose primary jobs are fighting fire, with many of them being seasonal. All five of the agencies were directed by Congress to convert some of their seasonals to permanent and/or year-round.
“The ultimate goal of workforce transformation is to attract and retain a diverse group of quality employees – dedicated people who will not only help manage fires and fuels in support of BLM’s multiple-use mission, but who have the potential to become the Bureau’s future leaders,” said BLM Deputy Director of Policy and Programs Nada Culver. “Our people are our most important resource, and this workforce transformation effort will result in more career opportunities and benefits for our wildland firefighters – those who work hard to keep the public safe and to protect our public lands.”
The BLM Fire program is planning to continue this transformation effort next fiscal year and beyond in hopes of fully transforming its workforce in the coming years.
“The fire activity we’ve experienced in 2021 and previous years reinforces the need for transforming a sizeable portion of our largely seasonal fire organization to permanent positions, though widespread change will not happen overnight,”said BLM Assistant Director of Fire and Aviation Grant Beebe.
Still image from PBS Weathered. “Firenado: when two of nature’s deadliest forces combine.”
PBS has published a 10-minute video (below) about how fire whirls and fire tornados form. Here is how they summarize it:
A fire tornado, or “firenado,” is exactly what it sounds like: a tornado made out of fire… and it is truly the stuff of nightmares. The most famous example occurred when the 2018 Carr Fire spawned an EF3 fire tornado with estimated wind speeds of 143 mph! And as climate change drives increasing wildfires around the planet, it only makes sense that we see more fire tornadoes as well.
Tune into this episode of Weathered to learn what the latest science can tell us about these rare but dangerous phenomena as well as about the surprising ability of burnt forests to store carbon and mitigate climate change.
Weathered is a show hosted by meteorologist Maiya May and produced by Balance Media that helps explain the most common natural disasters, what causes them, how they’re changing, and what we can do to prepare.
Fire whirls, much like dust devils, are not uncommon on a fire when the atmosphere is unstable, and are much smaller than fire tornados. In 1978 a researcher for the National Weather Service in Missoula, David W. Goens, established parameters for the two.
He said the average size of a fire whirl is usually 33 to 100 feet, with rotational velocities of 22 to 67 MPH.
But a fire tornado dominates the large scale fire dynamics. They lead to extreme hazard and control problems. In size, they average 100 to 1,000 feet in diameter and have rotational velocities up to 90 MPH.
Predicted to be above normal in Northern California through November
The forecast for wildland fire potential issued September 1 by the National Interagency Fire Center predicts that the potential for wildfires in Northern California will be above normal September through November. Northern Minnesota and the northwest one-quarter of the country will also be above normal in September. Hawaii and Wyoming could be busy in September and October. The southeast Atlantic coast states may experience above normal fire activity in October and November, but December looks to be pretty average in all 50 states.
The data from NIFC shown here represents the cumulative forecasts of the ten Geographic Area Predictive Services Units and the National Predictive Services Unit.
Below:
An excerpt from the NIFC narrative report for the next several months;
Additional NIFC monthly graphical outlooks;
NOAA’s three-month temperature and precipitation forecasts;
Drought Monitor;
Keetch-Byram Drought Index.
“Climate outlooks indicate warmer than normal conditions are likely for much of CONUS through fall. Wetter than average conditions are likely across western Washington for the fall with below normal precipitation likely across the Southwest, Great Basin, central Rockies, and much of the Plains. The Southeast is forecast to have near normal precipitation through October but turn drier in late fall and early winter.
“Much of Southern Area and areas south of the Ohio River are likely to have below normal significant fire potential in September, but much of the southeast US and Mid-Atlantic is forecast to have above normal fire potential in October and November. Normal significant fire potential is forecast for Alaska along with most of Eastern Area through the period. The entire US is forecast to have normal fire potential in December.
“Above normal significant fire potential is forecast to continue for September across much of the Northwest and portions of the Great Basin, Northern Rockies, and Rocky Mountain Geographic Areas. Most of these areas will return to normal fire potential in October and November except for portions of Wyoming, northwest Colorado, and the Black Hills, which will remain above normal into October. Much of northern California is forecast to have above normal potential through November with leeside locations in Hawaii likely to have above normal significant fire potential into October.”
Fuel treatments, Lake Tahoe area, and perimeter of the Caldor Fire Sept. 1, 2021.
For decades land managers and some residents in the Lake Tahoe area have been anticipating the Caldor Fire that has been burning since August 14. The blaze has blackened more than 204,000 acres as it rages to the northeast. It passed through the south edge of Meyers six miles south of the lakeshore and the head of the fire Wednesday morning was four miles from the lake.
Under the concept of reducing the fire threat to structures in the Lake Tahoe Basin, the US Forest Service and other organizations have been conducting hazardous fuel treatments. Since 1997, over 2,000 acres of landscape underburns and over 8,000 acres of prescribed pile burning has been completed on the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit (LTBMU), a division of the USFS that manages much of the land near the lake. In these areas, surface fuels have been reduced and smaller live trees thinned. The USFS says this “creates a zone where a damaging crown fire is less likely, which provides a safer environment for firefighters.”
The map above shows the fire on the morning of September 1 and completed hazardous fuel treatments. The green areas represent mechanical methods, such as thinning by hand or by using machines such as dozers or feller bunchers which can rapidly gather and cut a tree before felling it. Then the cut vegetation is piled. The purple areas represent locations where piles were burned. Some of the projects shown were completed in the last few years and others are older. This map shows very few areas (in yellow) that were treated with prescribed broadcast fire.
The USFS web page for the LTBMU politely says that budget restraints limit the number of acres that can be treated: “Increasing the annual number of acres treated with prescribed fire will challenge our future capacity.”
USFS engine crews on the initial attack of the Caldor Fire, August 14, 2021. USFS photo.
The hope is that reducing the flammable vegetation will reduce the chances of structures being destroyed when a fire like the Caldor Fire burns into the area. Thinning trees and removing brush will not stop a fire, but in a best case scenario under benign weather and fuel conditions it might reduce the intensity of the fire and the number of firebrands landing on and near structures. If a fire does dramatically slow down when entering a treated area, it may make it possible for firefighters on the ground, perhaps aided by firefighters in the air, to stop the spread. That is, unless the wind is too strong and the vegetation moisture is historically low like we have seen this summer in California. As we wrote on August 22, under these conditions, “There is no possibility of stopping the forward spread of the fire. There is no number of 747 air tankers or firefighters on the ground that could be effective against the flaming front of this raging inferno.” This will continue to be true until something changes — some combination of cooler more humid weather, less wind, and vegetation with higher moisture content — or until it runs out of fuel at high elevations or spreads into agricultural land.
The Caldor has been lofting burning embers into the air that have landed a mile ahead of the flaming front, starting new fires, called spot fires by firefighters. When that is occurring fuel reduction projects a half mile wide around a community will not necessarily keep structures from burning. We could pave the forest paradise and put up a parking lot but if a fire a mile away can ignite residences we need other solutions.
The Home Ignition Zone (HIZ) is what home owners need to concentrate on. If it is welcoming to an ember storm, then the structure could burn no matter how much forest management is done. The HIZ must be maintained so that burning embers will not start a fire on the structure or ignite nearby vegetation which creates a fire that spreads to and ignites the building.
This is called Living With Fire. We can’t stop fires from burning, but we can stop homes from igniting when the inevitable fire occurs.
The best way to prevent homes from being destroyed in a wildfire is not clear cutting or prescribed burning a forest, it is the homeowner reducing flammable material in the HIZ. This includes spacing the crowns of trees at least 18 feet apart. The envelope of the structure itself must be fire resistant, including the roof, vents, siding, doors, windows, foundation, fences, eaves, and decks. A FEMA publication (13 MB) has excellent detailed recommendations. Headwaters Economics found that the cost of building a fire-resistant home is about the same as a standard home. When implemented, Chapter 7A of the California Building Code, regulates these features.
Here is an excerpt from an article written by Jack Cohen and Dave Strohmaier:
Uncontrollable extreme wildfires are inevitable; however, by reducing home ignition potential within the Home Ignition Zone we can create ignition resistant homes and communities. Thus, community wildfire risk should be defined as a home ignition problem, not a wildfire control problem. Unfortunately, protecting communities from wildfire by reducing home ignition potential runs counter to established orthodoxy.
UPDATE September 3, 2021:
In a live briefing Sept. 3 about the Caldor Fire near South Lake Tahoe, California, East Side Incident Commander Rocky Oplinger complimented the land owners and managers for the fuel treatments that have been accomplished over the years. He said the 150-foot flame lengths dropped to about 15-feet when the fire entered the treated areas. This allowed hand crews and engines to take an aggressive approach to suppress the fire and prevent structure loss. The video of the briefing is on Facebook; Mr. Oplinger’s comments about the fuel treatments begin at 34:10.
Caldor Fire, looking northeast from Armstrong lookout, August 29, 2021. AlertWildfire.
A firefighter on the Caldor Fire suffered serious burns and is being treated in the burn unit at UC Davis Medical Center, the Modesto Bee reports.
Richard Gerety III of Patterson was on a four-person engine crew from West Stanislaus Fire when he fell into burning material. It was his tenth day on the fire. He suffered third-degree burns on his arms and hands and second-degree burns to his legs, said his wife, Jennifer Gerety. The burns account for about 20 percent of his body.
She said he will undergo skin grafting surgery Wednesday and recovery is expected to take up to a month.
Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to Kelly and Dan.
