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Tag: air tanker

Fire Chiefs pressure USFS to reopen Santa Maria air tanker base

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags , , 2 Comments on Fire Chiefs pressure USFS to reopen Santa Maria air tanker base

Since the Santa Maria air tanker base northwest of Santa Barbara was downgraded by the Los Padres National Forest on March 19, 2009 from a full-time to a Call When Needed base, some fire chiefs in the area have been lobbying the U. S. Forest Service to reverse that decision. We have written about this issue several times, but it is in the news again, as even more fire chiefs have gotten involved. Here is an excerpt from an article in the Santa Barbara Independent:

Chiefs Demand Fire Support

Want Full Service Restored at Santa Maria Air Tanker Base

Thursday, September 15, 2011

by NICK WELSH

Just two days after the 10th anniversary of 9/11, the fire chiefs of Santa Barbara County let loose the opening shot of what’s been a long-simmering campaign to pressure the U.S. Forest Service to restore “full-service” status to the Santa Maria Air Tanker Base, as opposed to the “call when needed” designation the base has had for the past two years. Santa Barbara City Fire Chief Andy DiMizio — accompanied by Montecito Fire Chief Kevin Wallace and Operations Chief Terry McElwee — showed up at Santa Barbara City Hall to ask the council to sign a ceremonial letter expressing their support for the fire chiefs in a battle of political will with the Forest Service. While the chiefs wore the brass, it was former county supervisor — and longtime rancher — Willy Chamberlin who held the floor, urging the councilmembers to hang tough and “not weaken.” Chamberlin introduced himself as a “self-appointed bird dog” when it came to air-tanker readiness, but his remarks to the council were relatively tame compared to comments he made in the hallways outside the council chambers. There, Chamberlin blistered the Forest Service for downgrading the status of the Santa Maria Air Tanker Base in 2009. Not only has the loss of a full-service base cost the federal government money, he said, it put county residents at greater peril in the face of wildland fires. Had the tanker base remained at full service, Chamberlin insisted that the Jesusita Fire of 2009 — which destroyed 80 homes — might well have been contained early on. “I’m not saying it would have stopped that fire,” Chamberlin said, “but it would most definitely have been a very different fire.” The chiefs, standing next to him, nodded in assent.

Thanks go out to Dick

USFS Chief issues statement about air tanker availability

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags , , 14 Comments on USFS Chief issues statement about air tanker availability
CL-215 and CL-415
CL-215 and CL-415 Medium Type 3 air tankers scoop water from Snowbank Lake while working on the Pagami Creek fire recently in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in Minnesota. Photo by Kristi Marshall for the Superior National Forest

(This article was updated on September 14 to reflect that there are now eight Convair CV-580 air tankers working temporarily in lower 48 States.)

The U. S. Forest Service is apparently feeling the heat from the public and politicians about the agency’s management, or lack thereof, of the large air tanker fleet, which through neglect has dwindled from the 44 we had in 2002 to the 11 large air tankers currently on exclusive use contracts. The decline began with the crash of two very old military surplus air tankers in 2002, which prompted the permanent grounding of similar antiques. But in the nine years since those crashes, nothing significant has been accomplished to rebuild the fleet.

This morning there were 11 air tankers on exclusive use contracts, plus 12 hired temporarily on a day basis (including one DC-10) and six or seven military C-130 MAFFS on a temporary assignment. There were no federal large air tankers in the states of New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, Minnesota, Montana, or Washington. I wonder if the firefighters on the ground in those states know they will get no large air tanker support for the initial attack of fires?

Here is a statement that was issued around September 8, 2011 by the U. S. Forest Service. Our comments are embedded in red.

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Statement from US Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell on Aircraft Support for Texas, Other Wildfires Throughout the Country

The Forest Service is working hard right now with our federal, state and local partners to combat fires in Texas, California and several other states. I want to assure the public that the Forest Service has ample aircraft strategically placed around the country to support on-the-ground teams combating this year’s wildfires. Our current available airplane fleet includes: “Ample aircraft”? One of the many USFS air tanker studies shows that we should work toward a goal of 32 large air tankers on exclusive use contracts. Now we have 11. 

  • 17 Large Air Tankers which have a capacity of delivering an average of over 2000 gals. of water or retardant per trip. We have 11 “Large” air tankers on exclusive use contracts. Within the last few weeks the USFS brought in on a temporary day by day basis eight “Large” Type 2 Convair CV-580 air tankers, three from the state of Alaska and five from the Canadian government.
  • 1 DC-10 Very Large Airtanker with a capacity of 12,000 gals. This was hired on a day by day Call When Needed contract. The USFS refuses to award any exclusive use contracts for Very Large Air Tankers, such as the DC-10s or the 747, which can carry 11,800 and 20,000 gallons, respectively.
  • 8 military aircraft specially outfitted to fight fires with an average capacity of 3000 gals. Six have been activated. Four are in Texas and two are in Idaho. CAL FIRE may have activated a seventh one for state responsibility fires in California.
  • 3 CL- 215 scooper aircraft which can deliver an average of 1300 gals. of water per trip.These are on a Department in Interior CWN contract. They are trying to get two more through an international agreement with Canada.
  • More than 100 wildland fire response helicopters, including exclusive use contracts for:
    • 2 dozen Type-1 heavy helicopters
    • Over 40 Type-2 medium helicopters on national contracts
    • Over 50 Type-3 light helicopters on local or regional contracts
    • Additional helicopters are available through call-when-needed contracts

All of these assets support the more than 16,000 federal firefighters (10,500 are Forest Service), and 1000 Forest Service firefighting engines.

The Forest Service takes the safety of our employees and contractors seriously and we insist on maintaining stringent airworthiness standards that were developed after two airtankers crashed in 2002, resulting in the loss of both crews. The Forest Service does not take shortcuts on safety. No responsible person is saying waiting more than nine years to make a decision about how to rebuild the air tanker fleet is taking a “shortcut”.

Politicians get involved in air tanker debate

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags 3 Comments on Politicians get involved in air tanker debate
DC-10 air tanker, 6-11-2011
Air Tanker 911, a DC-10, drops retardant on the Wallow fire to reinforce the fireline above Greer, AZ, 6-11-2011. Photo by Jyson Coil. Credit: US Forest Service, Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest.

It is rarely a good thing when politicians start providing advice about firefighting tactics and strategy. Too often they think air tankers and helicopters put out fires, as you can see in the excerpt below from an article at KXAN.com about the fires in Texas. Aircraft don’t put out fires, but in some cases they can slow them down enough to allow firefighters on the ground be more effective. They are simply one tool in the proverbial tool box.

…”The DC-10 got here in time to put out the fire just west of Houston but unfortunately not for Bastrop, and that’s something I’m going to chair oversight hearings on Homeland Security to get to the bottom of why can’t we more rapidly deploy?” Congressman Michael McCaul, R-Austin, said Monday at ABIA .

The DC-10 is used to drop retardant around the fire area to prevent it from spreading more. The aircraft arrived last week but sat at the airport because the pilots needed the FAA-mandated two-day downtime after a full two weeks of flying, fighting fires in California.

McCaul chairs the Congressional subcommittee that oversees all Department of Homeland Security operations. One of his main concerns is with the National Forest Service not having an exclusive contract with 10 Tanker, which owns the DC-10, or other private firefighting services.

The congressman said exclusive use agreements would ensure long-term use of such aircraft to fight fires, meaning the company would have money to hire extra crews to be on standby, not to mention having fire retardant systems ready to go near fire-prone areas.

From an article at brenhambanner.com:

One of two DC-10s and half of the military’s fleet of eight C-130s are now indefinitely stationed in Texas to fight wildfires, National Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell assured U.S. Michael McCaul after McCaul expressed deep concerns about delayed response to wildfires that burned more than 34,000 acres in Bastrop County.

The Forest Service committed to keep the DC-10 and C-130s stationed at Austin Bergstrom International Airport for the foreseeable future while fire danger remains high, according to McCaul’s office.

“We’ve known and Washington has known that Texas has been a tinderbox for months,” said McCaul (R-Texas). “The right approach is to have federal aviation assets strategically prepositioned to deploy within hours instead of days.

“This has to be a priority moving forward and I plan to explore this in an oversight hearing.”

Exclusive use agreements would contractually obligate tanker planes such as 10 Tanker’s DC-10s long-term. In turn, the agreement would ensure a revenue stream, allowing the company to hire extra crews who are on standby and to build multiple fire retardant loading systems within striking distance of the most fire-prone areas.

“When I toured Waller County they said the DC-10 was like ‘the cavalry coming in’ and it made a difference in Bastrop in the run it made before it was diverted,” McCaul said. “Had it been on the ground here a week ago it would have made a huge difference.”

Taking firefighting advice from a politician is a scary proposition, but maybe some good can come out of this if the mismanagement of the federal air tanker fleet gets more attention in Washington.

Check out the video below of the DC-10 dropping on the Riley Road fire in Texas. Everything gets very red. It was uploaded September 12, 2011.

The video below shows the DC-10 dropping near Panorama Village north of Houston, Texas. It was uploaded to YouTube September 10, 2011.

Here is a link to another video showing the DC-10 in action recently in Texas:

Air tanker studies

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags , 12 Comments on Air tanker studies
CL-415_LA_County
CL-415. Photo: LA County FD

(Note: we edited this on 9-10-2011 to add two additional air tanker studies that we became aware of today.) 

As we wait for another air tanker study to be completed, someone reminded me of one that was completed in the mid 1990s. Luckily, a summary of the study was published in the US Forest Service’s Fire Management Notes. We found out today that two of the reports about the 2009 fatal helibase rappel accident that we had linked to have been removed from the Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center site, so we put a copy of this edition of FMN on our Wildfire Documents page, along with the Blue Ribbon Panel report we refer to below.

Called the National Air Tanker Study (NATS), it had two phases. The first was released in 1995 and had this recommendation:

Phase 1 used initial-attack efficiency analysis to recommend staffing for 38 large airtankers nationally. These 38 airtankers, as staffed in the 1996–98 National Airtanker Contract, came from the existing fleet, which had retardant tanks that range in capacity from 2,000 to 3,000 gallons (7,570 to11,360 L). Goals for phase 1 were to optimize the existing available large airtanker fleet and to find the best airtanker base locations. Accordingly, the optimum number of 38 airtankers was determined based on an aggregate of geographic-area analyses called “scenarios.” In each scenario, the number of large airtankers was increased and decreased from existing levels to determine the number within the geographic area that minimized total airtanker program costs (fire suppression costs plus net value change costs).

Phase 2 had eight recommendations. Here is one of them:

Establish a future fleet of 20 P3–A aircraft, 10 C–130B aircraft, and 11 C–130E aircraft.

So the study recommended 38 to 41 large air tankers. It seems odd, then, that there are now 11 large air tankers under exclusive use contracts and the USFS keeps saying we have plenty. Tom Harbour, the Forest Service’s director of fire and aviation, referring to the cancelled contract for the six P3 air tankers operated by Aero Union in July, was quoted by aNewsCafe.com on July 31, 2011:

This contract termination notwithstanding, we possess the aircraft support needed for this year’s fire season.

And an article from the Riverside Press-Enterprise published on September 3, 2011, happens to be on Senator Dianne Feinstein’s web site. In this article, Mr. Harbour is referring to the air tanker situation:

This fall in SoCal, we’ve got more than enough stuff to cover the fire needs.

While it may have been a reasonable decision for the USFS to cancel the Aero Union contract for the six P3 air tankers based on safety, this just further exposes the fact that we we keep losing air tankers in chunks, in addition to an average of one a year being lost in a crash. In 2002 we had 44 large air tankers. Now we have 11. As we have said many times before, a long-term large air tanker strategy should have been developed and implemented shortly after the two mid-air wing failures in 2002. It’s been nine years and nothing significant has been done. And nobody has been fired.

To summarize, there have been at least three five air tanker studies either completed or overdue for completion in the last 16 years:

  1. 1995-1996, National Air Tanker Study (NATS) was summarized in Fire Management Notes. The study recommended 41 large air tankers be staffed nationally. While there should be debate about the models of aircraft they suggested, the sheer numbers of air tankers may still be valid, since recent recommendations for future air tankers (3,000-5,000 gallons and speed of 300 knots) have similar performance capabilities as those that were recommended in this 1996 report, which was a capacity of 3,300 gallons and a speed of 260 knots.
  2. Blue Ribbon Panel report. (1.1Mb) Federal Aerial Firefighting: Assessing Safety and Effectiveness; Blue Ribbon Panel Report to the Chief, USDA Forest Service and Director, USDI Bureau of Land Management; December 2002. This five-person panel was co-chaired by Jim Hall, former Chairman of the National Transportation Safety board. They were tasked with identifying weaknesses and fail points in the aviation program, focusing on safety, operational effectiveness, costs, sustainability, and strategic guidance. The panel (on page 17) seemed to shy away from recommending that we acquire additional ex-military aircraft and leaned toward development of “a fleet of purpose-built, turbine-engine, fixed-wing air tankers based on well-defined requirements”. Their report said: “The panel believes obtaining and outfitting newer military aircraft, such as C-130s and P-3s, would only perpetuate a cycle that has proven to be unsustainable and dangerous. Unless the FAA and operator community change its methods, one could expect to see another cycle of structural failures and pilot fatalities within a decade or two.”
  3. 2005 Wildland Fire Management Aerial Application Study. This study recommended 34 to 41 air tankers.
  4. 2009, National Interagency Aviation Council. This study endorses the acquisition of 25 new large air tankers which was recommended in the 2005 study. It projects on page 21 the number of large air tankers increasing from 19 in 2008 to 32 in 2018, and 3 scoopers. This takes into account the air tankers on hand when the report was written plus additional acquisitions. It also considers attrition through age of retiring P-3s and P-2Vs. The table with the numbers is below. The report recommends on page 73 that the new air tankers be C-130Js.
  5. The study by the RAND Corporation that was due in January of 2011. This study is supposed to craft still another large air tanker strategy, meant to guide the Forest Service’s acquisition of air tankers in the years to come. The U.S. Forest Service intends for the report to remain secret and has refused a Freedom of Information Act request. Copies of the report have been leaked.
  6. UPDATE September 26, 2011. The USFS announced they intend to give the Rand Corporation still another contract for still another study. This, apparently, is not a joke. UPDATE October 12, 2011. After the USFS announced that they would give a non-competitive contract to Rand, they changed their mind and are opening it up to competition. UPDATE June 12, 2012; the contract for this study was awarded to AVID. It is required to be completed by the end of 2012.
Air tanker numbers, projected through 2018
The number of firefighting aircraft on exclusive use contracts, not CWN, projected through 2018. Source: page 21 of the 2007-2009 report referenced above.

Here is an interesting excerpt from a letter from the USDA Office of Inspector General, written in 2009 to the Chief of the Forest Service, Tom Tidwell, responding to the US Forest Service’s “replacement plan for firefighting aerial resources”:

…For example, FS’ initial attack success rate has dropped since it began losing air tankers in 2004 due to safety concerns. By 2007, FS’ success rate had dropped from 98.8 percent to 97.3 percent. FS estimates that this 1.5 percent decrease represents approximately 150 more fires that escaped initial attack and cost FS an additional $300 million to $450 million to suppress. In comparison, new airtankers cost up to $75 million each. So, if FS can demonstrate that new, faster, more reliable, higher-capacity airtankers increase the agency’s initial success rate, then it can show that acquiring them is cost effective.

If we have learned anything from history, around 2017 to 2022 we will be left with three to five large air tankers on exclusive use contracts and we should be expecting a new air tanker study. And nobody will have been fired.

MAFFS air tankers activated, only one DC-10 crew left

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags , 26 Comments on MAFFS air tankers activated, only one DC-10 crew left
Preparing a MAFFS air tanker for deployment
Tech. Sgt. Mike Konegni, left, Airman Travis Mader, center, and Airman 1st Class Colton Shirley, with the 153rd Aircraft Maintenance Squadron, Wyoming Air National Guard, based in Cheyenne, Wyo., place orange tape on a C-130 cargo plane identified for an aerial firefighting mission, in the western portion of the United States, Sept. 8, 2011. The tape helps other aircraft identify the plane as part of the coordinated firefighting efforts. Photo by 1st Lt. Christian Venhuizen

Yesterday the National Interagency Fire Center activated two C-130 Modular Airborne Fire Fighting System-equipped (MAFFS) aircraft and support personnel from the 187th Airlift Squadron, 153rd Airlift Wing, Wyoming Air National Guard, out of Cheyenne, Wyoming. They will be based in Boise to fight fires in Nevada, Utah, and Idaho.

This was done because there are only 11 large air tankers left in the United States that are on exclusive use contracts, contrasted with the 44 we had in 2002. Aero Union has closed its doors and shut down their P3 air tankers due to inspection, safety, and contract issues, and the U. S. Forest Service is not interested in awarding exclusive use contracts for Very Large Air Tankers (VLAT) like Evergreen’s 747 or 10 Tanker Air Carrier’s DC-10s. CAL FIRE cancelled their exclusive use contract on June 30 for one of the DC-10s due to the state’s budget crisis, even though they were very happy with the effectiveness of the aircraft on fires.

Both Evergreen and 10 Tanker were only offered Call When Needed (CWN) contracts by the USFS this year for their VLATs. The proposed contracts did not even have a minimum number of days that they would be used on each activation, such as the 5 days that are stipulated in CAL FIRE’s current DC-10 CWN contract. Evergreen told the agency that they could not maintain their 747 in response-ready condition, with crews, without any guaranteed income. 10 Tanker reluctantly signed the CWN contract.

Within the last few weeks the USFS temporarily brought on six CWN air tankers — three Convair 580s and three CL-215 scooper aircraft.

Two DC-10 air tankers
Two DC-10 air tankers. Photo: 10 Tanker Air Carrier

10 Tanker has two DC-10 air tankers, but at this time they only have one DC-10 air tanker crew, so they can only operate one aircraft at a time. When mandatory days off are required, they have to shut the aircraft down rather than bring in a relief crew. With no guaranteed contract, they can barely keep one crew  available for CWN use.

One of the stated reasons for the USFS’s reluctance to use the VLATs is cost. But the MAFFS, with their large support crews, are not inexpensive. And the issue of using government air tankers instead of privately owned aircraft can’t be easily swept under the carpet.

Since dozens of air tankers were permanently grounded after two very old military surplus air tankers fell apart in mid-air in 2002, three studies have been commissioned to develop recommendations on how to reconstitute the large air tanker fleet. The last one was due in January, 2011, but it may not see the light of day until next year. But in the 9 years following those tragedies, nothing meaningful has been accomplished, and we’re down from 44 to 11 large air tankers. And no one has been fired.

One of the DC-10’s, the only one with a crew available, has been hired by the state of Texas for their current fire bust. At 12:40 p.m. MT they were reloading the aircraft with retardant for the third time today.

Forest Service fails to deliver air tanker report

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags , 12 Comments on Forest Service fails to deliver air tanker report

The U. S. Forest Service has missed another deadline to produce a report about how to deal with the severe shortage of large air tankers. A strategy to replace the dozens of air tankers that were permanently grounded after two very old military surplus air tankers fell apart in mid-air in 2002 should have been developed no later than 2004. Since then, missing promised reports combined with analysis paralysis have resulted in the large air tanker fleet being reduced to 11 on July 29, compared to 44 in 2002. The USFS keeps saying that they have plenty, but in the last couple of weeks they brought on additional air tankers, including three Convair 580s and three CL-215 scooper air tankers, bringing the total to 17 medium and large air tankers on exclusive use contracts. Correction. “JR” tells us that the CL-215s are working on a Call When Needed contract day by day, so they could disappear any time.

The Riverside, California Press-Enterprise follows wildfire very closely and on Saturday published an article detailing the USFS’ multiple failures to produce the reports about how to reconstitute the large air tanker fleet. Here is an excerpt from the article written by Ben Goad:

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Forest Service has again missed its deadline to complete studies needed to shape the agency’s future aerial firefighting strategy, igniting concern from a California lawmaker as wildfire season intensifies across the Inland area.

The Forest Service’s director of fire and aviation, Tom Harbour, acknowledged Friday that some of the review work initially scheduled to be complete in January won’t be finished until next year. Harbour attributed the delays to the complexity and high stakes — both in terms of cost and human lives — involved with modernizing the federal aerial firefighting fleet and accompanying policies.

He stressed that plenty of resources are on hand to battle flames in Inland Southern California, where several blazes have ignited in recent days, including a wildfire Friday in the Cajon Pass that shut down Interstate 15.

“This fall in SoCal, we’ve got more than enough stuff to cover the fire needs,” Harbour said.

For example, he said, three CL 215 firefighting planes known as “Scoopers,” able to drop hundreds of gallons of water at a time on flames in remote areas, were brought to the San Bernardino National Forest during a recent blaze.

But Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who first raised concerns about the delays in February, said she remains unsatisfied with the agency’s progress and said she plans to seek answers from Harbour’s boss.

“Fire season has begun in California, and millions of acres are at high risk of wildfire,” said Feinstein, D-Calif. “I intend to meet with Forest Service chief Tom Tidwell to understand why they have again failed to meet this deadline and enact a strategy to protect Californians from wildfires in the coming years.”

 

Thanks go out to Dick