Concept image of what the Colorado Springs airtanker base office building will look like when complete. Forest Service photo.Contractors are making progress on the new air tanker base at the Colorado Springs airport. The new eight-acre ramp near the airport’s main 13,500-foot runway is complete and the framework is in place for the office building.
The Forest Service is now saying the base should be operational for the 2022 fire year, which is about a year behind schedule. In January, 2020, construction was scheduled for the following summer, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony expected in 2021.
The framework for the airtanker base office building is under construction at Colorado Springs. Forest Service photo.On January 24, 2020 the Forest Service signed a lease agreement with the Colorado Springs Airport. The two agencies will share the costs for construction and maintenance, budgeted at approximately $20 million.
The base will feature six reload pits for large air tankers, and one pit for Very Large Air Tankers such as the DC-10 and 747. It will be the largest base in the region. The Forest service claims it will have the ability to serve a 600-mile radius, which might almost be realistic for the very large air tankers that can cruise at more than 540 miles an hour.
Colorado Springs airport, 600-mile radius map.The base will have the ability to reload multiple air tankers at once. By being able to service aircraft of all sizes and capabilities, the base will also reduce the total number of flights needed to fight a wildfire in the area, reducing the risk to additional flight crews.
During the winter months when the Forest Service is not using the ramp, the airport will use it as a de-icing area for commercial aircraft.
The slab foundation for the retardant mix plant is complete at Colorado Springs. Forest Service photo.The Forest Service has occasionally activated a temporary retardant base at the Colorado Springs Airport that had two pits and parking for six aircraft. JEFFCO tanker base at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport northwest of Denver has two pits but can fill only one air tanker at a time and neither base can handle Very Large Air Tankers.
Vanessa Lacayo, the Acting Press Officer for the Forest Service Rocky Mountain Region, told Fire Aviation in 2020 that the agency has no plans to close any other bases, including Single Engine Air Tanker Bases, after opening this new facility at Colorado Springs.
The Air Force Reserve base at Colorado Springs airport can activate two C-130 aircraft to serve as air tankers if needed, using the slip-in Modular Airborne FireFighting System, or MAFFS.
Congress awarded the Forest Service funding for the project as part of the 2018 Omnibus Bill that repurposed previous allocations to the agency’s Aviation Safety and Modernization Strategy. The Department of Agriculture prioritized the Colorado Springs Airtanker Base as one of the highest investments for Aviation Safety Modernization Projects, representing nearly one-fourth of the $37.2 million budget. The City of Colorado Springs is providing additional funding through a partnership agreement.
In July it was announced that the air tanker base at Grand Junction in western Colorado will be receiving a $6.1 million upgrade to replace facilities at the Air Center complex at the airport, which is the dispatch and air tanker base at the Upper Colorado River Interagency Fire Management Unit.
A retardant loading pit at the Grand Junction Air Center complex, May 10, 2017. Photo by Bill Gabbert.The improvements at the multi-purpose wildland fire management and operations center will eliminate safety hazards by replacing multiple structurally deficient buildings with a single cost-effective building. Additional structural repairs to the tanker base concrete apron pavement will correct multiple deficiencies and bring the apron into compliance with Federal Aviation Administration requirements.
Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to LM.
3 Comments
This is the “brainchild” of Bobby Kline.
A truly absurd location for a so-called super base. C Springs is not only the hail capitol America but is is also festooned with military airspace. Additionally it is also in a location with a very light fire load. This base is an utter an complete waste of taxpayer dollars…total inept failure. If there were ever to be a “super base” in CO it should’ve been in Grand Junction. It’s incomprehensible that this metaphor for failure is being built.
Colorado Springs has had 2 major urban interface wildfires with multiple fatalities and hundreds of houses wiped out within a 20 mile radius of this airport. Should a fire ever break out in the foothills above the Broadmoor, it’ll dwarf those two previous events. For an airport of its size it’s honestly not busy at all (my home office looks out over the runway) and has the benefit of a runway that was built long enough to serve as a back-up runway for the Space Shuttle. There’s a reason Boeing does all its testing here…..and speaking of hail, while it does happen (perhaps more so than some other parts of the country) we are fair from the “hail capital” — that’s Cheyenne, WY.
I find it very interesting that the region press officer said that they were not going to close bases. Robby Kline told me in a few years that after Colorado Springs was built, the plan for Jeffco, Durango, and Pueblo was to close, downgrade to call when needed, or downgrade to SEAT only bases. At that time the region was leaning to close Jeffco and move that staff to Colorado Springs to run the base. Durango and Pueblo were going to be call when needed bases/seat bases and most of the funding for those bases would be dumped into staffing and maintaining Colorado Springs. Maybe things have changed but if Robby is still in the Regional office, I’d be willing to bet that those 3 bases get closed and/or downgraded in the years following the opening of Colorado Springs. Really if we look at the speed of the tankers these days Grand Junction and Colorado Springs really can cover the whole state for VLATs and LATs. In addition to that this also allows for Colorado Springs to become a MAFFS Hub base where a full MAFFS Activation could happen just like McClellan is in Northern California.
Comments are closed for this article!