A few days ago I was interviewed by Boise State Public Radio. They wanted to talk about air tankers. You can listen to the interview here.
Radio interview about air tankers
South Dakota: East Argyle Fire burns 107 acres
Very strong winds pushed the East Argyle Fire across 107 acres of private land in the Black Hills of South Dakota on Monday. At one weather station in the area a wind gust of 55 mph was measured, challenging firefighters from state, federal, and local fire departments. The fire, which is south of Pringle, SD (map) was reported at 1:34 p.m. on Monday. Thanks to decreasing winds and temperatures reaching down to about 12° during the night, it was contained by mid-morning on Tuesday.
These photos were taken by Bill Gabbert at approximately 4 p.m. MT, March 5, 2013.
Bill introduced in Nebraska to enhance wildfire suppression capability
A bill has been introduced in the Nebraska Senate that would enhance wildfire training, preparedness, and suppression capability of firefighters in the State. The proposed legislation would provide two single air tankers in the northwest part of the state and develop a Type 3 incident management team, in addition to other provisions. Senator Al Davis of Hyannis will present the bill, called the Wildfire Control Act of 2013, to the Legislature’s Natural Resources Committee on Friday.
Key provisions of the proposed legislation include:
- Contract with private aviation companies to place two single engine air tankers during the fire season at airports near Chadron and Valentine. These planes would provide rapid initial attack across a broad area of western Nebraska on both private and public lands, keeping fires small and less destructive.
- Thin forests to reduce fuel loads, substantially reducing wildfire risk, intensity, and rate of the spread, and reduce risks to residents, communities and emergency personnel.
- Provide expanded training programs for volunteer firefighters, private landowners and communities in order to increase fire suppression effectiveness and safety.
- Develop a Nebraska-based Type 3 incident management team that would serve as a comprehensive resource to augment and help manage large wildfire operations.
- Expand the federal excess property programs managed by the Nebraska Forest Service to provide volunteer fire districts with fire suppression equipment.
- Rehabilitate forest lands that have been destroyed by wildfires.
The bill was introduced by Senator Davis and has eight co-sponsors.
Here is a link to a fact sheet about the bill with more details.
TBM photos
Seeing Walt Darran’s photo of him cranking a TBM at Hemet reminded me of some photos I took of some TBM’s dropping on fires in southern California in 1972. In those days there was not much of an effort to get firefighters out of the area when air tankers were dropping. Of course today, instead of carrying 300 gallons, air tankers are dropping 600 to 20,000 gallons.
Cleaning retardant off a 35mm camera while you’re fighting fire is not the easiest thing in the world.
Badlands National Park, New Year’s Eve
There were no fires in Badlands National Park yesterday.
Click on the images to see larger versions. All photos were taken by Bill Gabbert.
Journalism students write about air tankers
Four students studying journalism at Washington State University have written an article that summarizes the state of the federal air tanker program. It is interesting in that it quotes several knowledgeable people who have close ties to management of the fleet, including Jim Hall, former Chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, and Ron Hanks, head of aviation safety with the U.S. Forest Service. They also interviewed Dick Mangan, past president of the International Association of Wildland Fire.
Mr. Hall, who chaired the 2002 Blue Ribbon Panel following the crashes of two air tankers that killed five aviators that year, continues to lament the current state of the air tanker program, much as he did earlier this summer.
Mr. Hanks apparently told the student reporters:
Right now, we have 17 aircraft, and that includes the Canadian aircraft that we have borrowed.
That puts an extremely favorable spin on the fact that as the fire season ends there are nine large air tankers on exclusive use contracts, plus two BAe-146s that were put on temporarily as “additional equipment” on Neptune’s contract. The Canadian air tankers and lead planes that Mr. Hanks referred to were borrowed for a month or so last summer. In 2002 we had 44 large air tankers.
Here is a video that illustrates the student’s story;
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Followup on Waldo Canyon Fire investigation, and availability of air tankers
After writing about the Colorado Springs Independent article reporting on their investigation into the management of the Waldo Canyon Fire, we looked into the availability of air tankers during that time frame.
On June 23, 2012, the day the fire started, there were eight large fires burning in Colorado and 16 uncontained large fires in the country. On June 26 when the Waldo Canyon Fire moved into Colorado Springs burning 346 homes and killing two people, there were 29 uncontained large fires burning in the United States.
However there were only nine large air tankers in the United States on national U.S. Forest Service exclusive use contracts, down from the 44 we had in 2002.
Two Korean War vintage air tankers crashed June 3, 2012, killing Capt. Todd Neal Topkins and First Officer Ronnie Edwin Chambless bringing the total from 11 down to 9. Four military Modular Airborne FireFighting System (MAFFS) C-130 air tankers were mobilized on June 24 and four more on June 29.
We may never know if the shortage of air tankers had anything to do with the loss of two lives and 346 homes in Colorado Springs. Fighting fire on the cheap does not save money.
Photo safari in a national park
I love living within 15 minutes of a national park. In this case it’s Wind Cave in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Late this afternoon I grabbed my cameras and drove into the park to see what was out and about.
I saw some deer in the distance and wanted to get some shots of them, but of all the large animals in Wind Cave, the deer are one of the more skittish. So I parked my truck where they could not see me and with a hill shielding me from their sight, I sneaked up to get as close as I could. When I crested the hill they saw me at the same time I saw them. They froze for one second and I quickly took this photo:
Then they immediately ran. And you can see why the species is named White Tail Deer:
Later I saw a herd of at least 50 elk about a half mile away — I was glad I had a 400mm lens. Here is a portion of the herd:
Continue reading
National Wildland Fire Cohesive Strategy nearly complete
The process of developing the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy required by the 2009 FLAME Act to seek national, all-lands solutions to wildland fire management issues, is nearing completion after three years.
The Missoulian has an interesting article that highlights some of the issues the planning is considering. Here are some excerpts:
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“The scientists aren’t going to say, ‘This is what you need to do,’ ” [former forest supervisor Alan] Quan said. “They’re saying, ‘Tell us what are the questions you want answered.’ And the answers may be so outrageous, it could force another way of thinking.”
The first question: If the country keeps fighting wildfires the way it has been, what will forests look like in 10 or 20 years? The second question: If we don’t like that trend, what would it take to change it?
And the trend looks bad. Last week, Doug Morton of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center released results of a new climate model and its implications for wildfire.
The short version of his findings: Extreme fire seasons will become two to four times more frequent in the next 30 or 40 years. Fire seasons like 2012, where 6.17 million acres burned nationwide, may become normal.
[…]
The national strategy suggests three big goals: Restore fire-adapted landscapes. Protect communities. Suppress fire. And it provides three tools: An unprecedented gathering of fire science data. A mapping project to visualize that information throughout the country. And a risk trade-off analysis to make sense of it all.
The data has been piling up for the past three years. The maps have progressed at the same time. The risk analysis should be ready next June.
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Thanks go out to Dick and Eric.
Two air tankers still on active duty
(Revised at 7:37 a.m. MT, December 4, 2012)
The mandatory availability periods for the nine large air tankers on national contracts ended in August, September, and October, but two P2Vs are still working today due the warm, dry weather that some areas of the country are experiencing. Tanker 48, operated by Minden, and Neptune’s Tanker 43 are the two that are working on a day by day basis through “optional use” provisions in their contracts, according to Jennifer Jones, a spokesperson for the U.S. Forest Service in Boise.
Air tankers were requested early Saturday morning, December 1, for the rapidly spreading Fern Lake Fire that was moving toward structures west of Estes Park, Colorado. Fire managers were told that the only large air tankers sill working were in California but were unavailable due to weather in the Bay Area, according to David Eaker, a spokesperson for the Fern Lake Fire.
Today two large air tankers were supposed to be parked on the ramp at JEFFCO air tanker base northwest of Denver after being ferried in from California, but only one made it, Tanker 48. The other one, Tanker 43 had to stop in Durango, Colorado, unable to climb over the continental divide due to weather. We’re thinking the old P2V does not have de-icing equipment.
If the USFS is going to keep air tankers working into the winter, maybe a better choice of which ones to keep on would be a couple of the BAe-146s, which I assume have de-icing equipment.
The one tanker at JEFFCO, 48, has not been used on the Fern Lake Fire yet due to strong winds over the fire. Mr. Eaker told Wildfire Today that they may be used very soon to pretreat some areas where large burnouts are planned, thanks to improving weather forecasts indicating decreasing winds.
Tanker 43 was responsible for closing the Rapid City Airport for 40 minutes on June 20 when an engine failure on takeoff resulted in the crew jettisoning the 2,000-gallon load of retardant on two runways and a taxiway.
(This article was edited to reflect the fact that one of the air tankers was delayed ferrying to JEFFCO. Thanks Rob.)