A 24-hour report about an October 29 incident on the Spur Fire on the Stanislaus National Forest in California is an example of extraordinary work by a couple of firefighters to assist an injured crewmember. Here is the narrative:
A Cal Fire crew was engaged in direct hand line construction during initial attack when a crew member fell and injured his knee. The fire crew captain directed his crew to retreat into the black, and with the help of another firefighter, dragged the injured firefighter through the flame front and into the black. In the process, the captain received a minor first degree radiant heat burn to the left side of his face with no other injury. Both the captain and the firefighter were evaluated at a local hospital and released. No other injuries were sustained by the crew. A Facilitated Learning Analysis (FLA) team is on scene reviewing this incident.
As a reminder, HERE is a link to the guidelines for burn injuries that should be referred to a burn unit, according to Ameriburn.org.
Dave Thomas receives Safety Award
Dave Thomas receives IAWF Safety Award. Photo by IAWF.
The award was given to Dave in recognition of his on-going study of and instruction on the implications of human behavior to firefighter safety. During a 33 year career with the US Forest Service, Mr. Thomas worked as a firefighter, fire manager, fire behavior analyst, regional fire specialist and review team member.
Currently, he’s working on capturing the “deep smarts” of retired fire management employees with high expertise in the fields of fire behavior, prescribed fire and wildland fire use with Harvard Business School.
Wyoming ran out of suppression funds
The busier than usual 2012 wildfire season has taken its toll on the budgets of federal and state agencies. Approximately 1,300 fires in Wyoming burned about 600,000 acres and consumed all of the money the state had allocated for fire suppression. The state’s share of fighting wildfires this season will total an estimated $42 million after accounting for the portion that will be paid by the federal government.
Senator says we need newer air tankers
Colorado Senator Michael Bennet has issued a press release stating that he is in favor of the modernization of the firefighting air tanker fleet.
More photos of firefighting aircraft on Google Earth
C-130 MAFFS air tanker crash, July 1, 2012. US Air Force photo
(Update: On November 29, 2012 the Air Force released the full report on the crash. More details are at FireAviation.com HERE and HERE.)
A US Air Force report concluded that strong winds out of a thunderstorm caused the crash of a military C-130 air tanker July 1. The accident occurred on the White Draw Fire near Edgemont, South Dakota and resulted in four fatalities. Two crewmen in the rear of the aircraft were injured but survived. Those two were operating the Modular Airborne FireFighting System (MAFFS) in the cargo hold which enables the C-130 to function as an air tanker, capable of dropping up to 3,000 gallons of fire retardant.
MAFFS C-130 crash, White Draw Fire, July 1, 2012. US Air Force photo.
The report said a microburst of turbulent air out of a thunderstorm caused the crash. During a previous retardant drop on the fire the aircraft experienced a drop in airspeed despite operating under full power. Before the second drop the crew discussed the air speed problem but decided they could adjust to the conditions. The plane crashed on the second drop about five minutes after the first one.
A lead plane flying a half-mile ahead of the C-130 experienced a microburst that pushed it within 10 feet of the ground. According to a news release from the Department of Defense:
The investigation also determined factors that substantially contributed to the mishap included the failure of the Lead Plane and Air Attack aircrews to communicate critical operational information; as well as conflicting operational guidance concerning thunderstorm avoidance.
“If you add all the pieces up, it was very clear they should not have attempted the second drop,” said Brig. Gen. Randall Guthrie, the Air Force Reserve officer who led the investigation. “With all apparent conditions, they should not have gone ahead.”
“They struggled to keep that [lead] plane flying,” Guthrie said. A second small plane also reported “more than moderate turbulence.”
The crews of those planes failed to alert the trailing C-130 to go around the storm, the investigation found. Instead, the lead plane crew advised the C-130 to drop its load of retardant to lighten the craft to help it climb.
“We felt like they had information and the importance of that information was not passed,” Guthrie said. Those crews later said “they also didn’t really add all those factors up themselves.”
The C-130 dropped the retardant but crashed seconds later, dropping into a lightly-wooded plateau, then into a ravine and breaking apart.
The aircraft that crashed was MAFFS #7 from the North Carolina Air National Guard’s 145th Airlift Wing based at Charlotte-Douglas International Airport.
We are working on obtaining a copy of the full report. We we get it, we’ll update this article with a link.
Killed in the crash were Lt. Col. Paul Mikeal, 42, of Mooresville; Maj. Joseph McCormick, 36, of Belmont; Maj. Ryan David, 35, of Boone; and Senior Master Sgt. Robert Cannon, 50, of Charlotte. The two seriously injured were Chief Master Sgt. Andy Huneycutt and Sgt. Josh Marlowe of Boiling Springs.
Devore Fire, Cajon Pass in southern California, 11-5-2012. Photo by Rick McClure
Rick McClure, a free-lance photographer for the Associated Press and fire publications, got this spectacular photo of Tanker 41, a BAe-146, dropping on the Devore Fire in Cajon Pass in Southern California November 5, 2012. He shot it with a Nikon D5000 at f/6.3, 1/640. And he was not half a mile away using a huge telephoto lens. This was a zoom lens at 150 mm.
Mr. McClure told us “I actually couldn’t run fast enough to get totally out of the drift.” One other photo he got for us is at our new sister site, Fire Aviation.
The Devore Fire burned 350 acres along Interstate 15 in the San Bernardino National Forest.
Tankers 40 and 10 (the newest addition) at Neptune’s facilities in Missoula, October 30, 2012. Photo by Bill Moss (click to enlarge)
Neptune Aviation has acquired their third BAe-146 next generation air tanker, designated Tanker 10 as you can see in the photo above sent to us by Bill Moss. The newest addition to the fleet does not yet have the lightning bolt striping, which might be applied by a local vendor in Missoula. It also has a blue belly, unlike Tankers 40 and 41 which are white underneath.
If “Tanker 10” sounds familiar, it’s because Neptune had been operating a P2V designated as Tanker 10 until February, when a 24-inch crack in a wing spar and skin was discovered, causing the FAA to issue an Emergency Airworthiness Directive which grounded all P2Vs until inspections could be completed. There is a report that the “10” on the P2V’s tail has been painted over and the aircraft is now being used for parts for the other 50-year-old war birds that are still flying.
The U.S. Forest Service is still struggling to issue contracts for what they are calling “next generation air tankers” which will be turbine-powered, be able to cruise at 300 knots (345 mph), and preferably have a capacity of 3,000 to 5,000 gallons of retardant. The process started November 30, 2011 when they first published the Request for Proposals. Last summer four companies were given “letters of intent” for a total of seven air tankers saying their proposals had been accepted, contingent upon successful negotiation of a “cancellation ceiling rate”, which would be the amount given to the companies if the government had to cancel the contracts before the scheduled end date. Those negotiations were underway when the awards were protested by Coulson Aviation and 10 Tanker Air Carrier.
Then the USFS went back to the drawing board and issued another amendment to the RFP clarifying a couple of dozen issues, including that the minimum acceptable retardant capacity was 2,400 gallons at sea level. The new amendment has a response due date of November 1, 2012.
Neptune operated their two BAe-146s for part of this year based on them being designated as “additional equipment” on their existing contract for their legacy air tankers, P2Vs that are more than 50 years old. The company plans to fly a total of 11 BAe-146s by 2016 which “will have the capability of being dispatched to customers worldwide”, according to the company’s web site. Maybe they hope to send them to Australia during America’s winter, and have them back home in time for USFS contracts.
After having 44 large air tankers on exclusive use contracts in 2002, there are now only 9, not counting Neptune’s two BAe-146s that were added temporarily this summer as “additional equipment” on their contract for the legacy air tankers which expires at the end of this year.
White Draw fire, Black Hills of South Dakota, July 7, 2012. Photo by Bill Gabbert
U.S. Forest Service ran out of money for fires
Because the federal government only appropriates funds for firefighting based on a 10-year average, and with this year having more than the average number of fires, the U.S. Forest Service ran out of money. The agency had to take funds from other accounts to continue to suppress fires. Congress dealt with the issue, providing $400 million from the 2013 Continuing Resolution.
The Washington Post has a straight forward article on the subject, and if you like a little commentary thrown in, you can check out how FireDogLake reported the story.
Air tanker company busier than usual
And speaking of more fires than average, New Frontier Aviation which operates single engine air tankers, has been much busier this summer than in an average fire season. Andy Taylor, the owner of the company told a reporter for the Capitol Journal, that the last time he remembers a fire season being this busy was in 2006.
Nebraska official says better forest management could have lessened impacts of recent fires
A District Forester for the Nebraska Forest Service said better forest management could have lessened the adverse impacts of some of the recent fires that burned forest lands in the northwest part of the state. In the article attributed to the Associated Press, Chadron based District Forester Doak Nickerson suggested that land owners could concentrate more on “active management, a term that includes activities such as logging, grazing, thinning out diseased and insect-infested trees, and purposely setting controlled fires to clear brush that can feed a fire”.
Interestingly, the article was published by many organizations around the country with a misleading headline reading “Logging Could Have Eased Neb. Fires”, found on The Weather Channel, the Scotts Bluff Star Herald, and My San Antonio. To their credit, The Republic, an Indiana publication, had the following headline: “Official says Nebraska forest struck by wildfire was overgrown, could have been better managed”.
The Associated Press probably distributed the article with the suggested headline about logging, but The Republic must have actually read the article and composed a headline that more accurately reflected what the District Forester was reported as saying in the article. Good work by The Republic.
Coulson’s C-130H and Firewatch 76. Photo by Coulson.
After announcing on June 13 the awards for contracts for seven next generation air tankers, the U.S. Forest Service is going back to the drawing board. Their contracting office has notified the nine aircraft companies that submitted bids on the request for proposal (RFP) originally published November 30, 2011, that they will not be executing the awards for the four companies that appeared to be the winners, Neptune Aviation Services, Minden Air Corporation, Aero Air, and Aero Flite.
As Kelly Anderson reported for us on August 7, two companies protested the awards, Coulson Aviation and 10 Tanker Air Carrier.
Contracts for the air tankers were never issued or signed, only “letters of intent” were sent to the four companies. Matt Olson, the USFS contracting officer for the next generation air tankers, told Wildfire Today that the awards were contingent on negotiating with each company a “cancellation ceiling rate”, which would be the amount given to the companies if the government had to cancel the contracts before the scheduled end date. Those negotiations were underway when the awards were protested.
An amendment to the RFP will be issued, and all nine companies that previously submitted proposals, including the four vendors who were notified of pending awards in June, will have an opportunity to submit revised proposals once the amendment is issued.
Mr. Olson said the amendment will be issued either today or early next week and responses will be due about a month later. It most likely will not be posted online. (UPDATE: it was issued to the nine companies today, October 5.) He expects the second generation of awards for the next generation air tankers will be announced early in 2013.
The primary change in the new amendment to the RFP will be to clarify that the air tankers must be able to carry at least 2,400 gallons at sea level at ISA plus 30 degree Celsius.
Now that the USFS has published the dollar amounts of the awards, offering the nine companies the opportunity to revise their bids could result in an interesting dynamic and some very different prices. On the June 13 award announcement, the dollar amounts listed for the first year of the 5-year contract, with options for 5 additional years, were:
BAe-146 (Neptune had the high prices, and Minden the low)
Daily availability, $27,978 to $23,300
Hourly flight rate, $9,520 to $7,700
RJ-85, a variant of the BAe-146 (Aero-Flite)
Daily availability, $29,661
Hourly flight rate, $5,719
MD-87 (Aero Air)
Daily availability, $23,614
Hourly flight rate, $6,600
The above rates are “dry”, and do not include fuel.
The two companies that protested the awards, Coulson and 10 Tanker, would like for their aircraft to be considered more on a cost per DELIVERED gallon of retardant, and not primarily the daily and hourly rates. Coulson has purchased a C-130H and owns the rights to build an Aero Union designed constant-flow tank that could hold up to 5,000 gallons. 10 Tanker’s two DC-10 air tankers carry 11,600 gallons and don’t have to download based on density altitude like all other air tankers.
Using the USFS’s logic of the lowest price for one load of retardant, an 800-gallon aircraft with a low operating cost would be the best bet. But if the incident commander needs more than 800 gallons, or more than one load, an air tanker that can carry many thousands of gallons of retardant could cost less to get the job done, and get it done more quickly. Remember what we keep saying… fast aggressive, initial attack can keep small fires from becoming megafires. The federal government’s policy of trying to suppress fires on the cheap has limitations.
As a comparison of air tanker rates, in 2011 the average costs for a P2V on an exclusive use contract were $9,700 for daily availability, plus $6,500 per flight hour. In 2012, the rates for a DC-10 on a Call When Needed Contract are $50,021 for daily availability, plus $21,253 per flight hour including fuel, or $7,445 without fuel. CWN rates have to be much higher than for an extended exclusive use contract, since there is no guarantee that the aircraft will be used at all, or for more than a few days each year.
Tanker 41 at Missoula, August 11, 2012. Wildfire Today photo.
The two next generation BAe-146 air tankers operated by Neptune were brought on not through the next generation RFP, but were added to the company’s existing legacy air tanker contract as “additional equipment”. The contract for Tanker 40, which first dropped on a fire in September of 2011, ends today, October 5, but was extended by a few days due to having missed some of its Mandatory Availability Days (MAP) when it was down for maintenance. Tanker 41 first came on contract September 1, 2012 and was scheduled to go off on November 9, but it will also be extended a few days because it missed some MAP days while undergoing maintenance.
The RFP for the next generation air tankers allows for between 7 and 35 additional air tankers to be brought on. At this time funding available to the USFS will only allow for 7. Mr. Olson, the contracting officer, told us that he expects there to be a 5 percent reduction in funding for the USFS, so it is unlikely that any more than 7 will receive next generation contracts in the next year.
Still pending are award announcements for the RFPs for “legacy” air tankers such as the P2V which can carry at least 1,800 gallons, and Call When Needed contracts for Very Large Air Tankers that have a capacity of at least 10,000 gallons. The existing contracts with Minden and Neptune for the legacy air tankers expire within the next few months. The new ones will begin on February 20, 2013 … IF this RFP goes much more smoothly than the one for the next generation air tankers.
