Society of American Foresters article about the air tanker crisis

Bill GabbertJuly 17, 2012December 26, 2014Uncategorizedair tanker, Tom Harbour5 Comments

P2V on the Whoopup fire — A P2V over the Whoopup Fire, July 18, 2011. Photo by Bill Gabbert.

We were recently interviewed by Steve Wilent who wrote an article about what we are calling the air tanker crisis for The Forestry Source, a publication of the Society of American Foresters. The article is reprinted here with their permission.

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Forest Service Bolsters Airtanker Fleet After Two Crashes

By Steve Wilent, Editor, The Forestry Source

As massive wildfires burning in the Southwest made for an ominous beginning to the 2012 fire season, two airtankers crashed in June, leaving two crew members dead and underscoring warnings about the safety of the US Forest Service’s aging and depleted fleet. Both aircraft were 50-year-old Lockheed P2Vs originally designed for US military anti-submarine patrols. With the crashes, the agency had just 9 large airtankers under contract, down from a fleet of 44 in 2002.

The two firefighters died in the same June 3 crash in western Utah when their P2V veered off course and slammed into mountainous terrain, according to a preliminary National Transportation Safety Board report. The second accident occurred on the same day near Reno, Nevada, when another P2V crash-landed after its landing gear failed to deploy.

“The pilots of Tanker 11 lost their lives protecting public safety and natural resources,” said Tom Harbour, Director of Fire and Aviation Management for the U.S. Forest Service. “As the entire fire and aviation community grieves their loss, we must ensure that we maintain our capability to fulfill our responsibilities to be prepared to respond vigorously to wildfires threatening people, communities, infrastructure, and natural and cultural resources.”

On June 11, the agency announced the addition of eight aircraft to the fleet, including one DC-10, and said it would arrange for 5 additional large helicopters to be activated earlier than scheduled. On June 13, President Obama signed a bill, rushed through Congress after the two crashes, that waives certain Forest Service airtanker contracting requirements, allowing the agency to speed up issuing contracts for “next generation” aircraft.

Even before the crashes, critics called for strengthening of the agency’s weakened airtanker fleet.

“With an aging fleet that has dwindled from 44 airtankers in 2002 to 11 this year, and will continue to decline in the years to come, I am unconvinced the USFS’s current airtanker fleet is prepared to adequately address an immense wildfire or even what is sure to be a long fire season,” wrote Colorado Sen. Mark Udall in an April 12 letter to Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell.

Such concerns are not new. Following the crashes of two airtankers in 2002—one of which was filmed by a television news crew as its wings broke off in mid-air—the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management commissioned a Blue Ribbon Panel to assess the federal wildfire aviation program. Among its eight major findings, the panel determined that “The safety record of fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters used in wildland fire management is unacceptable.” The report is available on the Source Extras page, www.safnet.org/members/archive/source_extras.cfm.

Since then, more-stringent safety requirements and inspections have led to many aircraft being deemed less than airworthy, a key factor in the reduction in the fleet’s numbers.

In February, the Forest Service released a “Large Airtanker Modernization Strategy” (www.fs.fed.us/fire/aviation/) that recommended contracting for 18 to 28 “next generation” large airtankers that are more reliable, faster, and can carry more retardant than the “legacy” airtankers.

2002 Report Still Valid

Former Texas state forester Jim Hull, now retired, was co-chair of the Blue Ribbon Panel.

“The report that we did nearly a decade ago is just as valid today as it was back then,” Hull said in a June interview. “There has been a continuous cycle of trying to use the old, worn-out military planes, and we’ve been doing this now for over 50 years. At some point, somebody’s got to wake up and realize that we’ve got to do something different.”

However, Hull cautions against assuming that the age of the aircraft had anything to do with the two crashes in June, pending a final report by the National Transportation Safety Board.

“It seems to me that one of our findings seems to be continually overlooked,” Hull said. “And that is the fact that no one in Congress or the administrations since then, whichever party has been in power, has seemed inclined to wake up to the fact that this is a national issue. It’s not a Forest Service or BLM issue, it’s a national issue—it’s going to take national leadership to provide adequate aerial firefighting capability for the nation. You can’t blame the agencies. I think they’re probably doing the best that they can possibly do with the funds that they have. Until the leadership of the nation is willing to mandate [the establishment of a modern airtanker fleet] and the funding to go with it, I don’t see any way that were going to resolve this problem.”

Bill Gabbert, former executive director of the International Association of Wildland Fire and editor of the Wildfire Today web site (wildfiretoday.com), said the Forest Service bears the responsibility for the state of the airtanker fleet.

“Since the fatal crashes in 2002, the Forest Service just hasn’t stepped up to the plate to make any decisions,” Gabbert said. “They have not shown any leadership on how to rebuild the fleet. They have managed the problem strictly in a negative sense, by banning certain types of aircraft from the fleet, but they haven’t done anything to encourage or make it easier for the private contractors to add to their fleets. It’s extremely difficult under the current procedures for a private vendor to buy an aircraft and pay to have it retrofitted as an airtanker.”

A key factor, Gabbert said, is that a contractor seeking a loan to buy and retrofit an aircraft can’t show a bank that it will receive enough income to justify the loan.

“There’s no guarantee that a contractor will receive a certain amount of income, even if they do get a contract for an aircraft. They don’t know how much they will fly or how much they will make. They don’t know if the aircraft will pass tests by the Inter-Agency Airtanker Board. There are just too many unknowns. There are just too many unknowns,” said Gabbert.

The solution, said Gabbert, is for the agency to purchase its own airtankers.

“I’ve reluctantly come to the conclusion that about the only way to ensure that we rebuild the fleet with safe aircraft is for the Forest Service to come up with a specific proposal, not one full of generalities like they did a few months ago [with the Large Airtanker Modernization Strategy],” he said. “They need to submit a specific, detailed proposal to Congress to ask for money to buy brand-new aircraft, including funding to retrofit them as airtankers. Brand-new, state-of-the-art, safe aircraft. And then they should issue contracts to private contractors to fly and maintain those airtankers. If we don’t do that, then we are just going to get more old, discarded aircraft.”

Wildfire briefing, June 30, 2012

Bill GabbertJune 30, 2012August 25, 2019UncategorizedJanice Coen, Tom Harbour11 Comments

Court rules company must pay $18 million for 2002 Copper fire

A federal appeals court ruled Friday that a company must pay $18 million for “Intangible environmental damages” caused by the Copper fire that burned 20,000 acres in 2002, most of it within the Angeles National Forest in southern California. The company had not contested a previous jury award of $7.6 million for fire suppression costs, but they balked at the “intangible” damage.

USFS Director of Fire has an opinion about resource orders placed by Incident Commanders

The authors of an Associated Press article interviewed Tom Harbour, the U.S. Forest Service’s Director of Fire and Aviation Management, who talked about Incident Commanders not always receiving the type of resources they say they need. Here is an excerpt from the article:

…Despite some criticism, Harbour said the U.S. Forest Service has been working to position resources where they’re needed most.

There’s a difference between what incident commanders want and what they need to fight a fire effectively, he said. For example, a commander’s order for 10 hot shot crews — among the most elite firefighters — might be filled instead with a mix of hot shots and initial attack crews, which can be just as formidable but with less experience.

This is insulting to Incident Commanders who are out on the ground in the heat, smoke, and dust after having qualified for their position through 15 to 20 years of wildland fire experience. For someone in Washington or Boise who stares at a computer screen all day to decide what Incident Commanders out in the field REALLY need, is absurd.

Report: U.S. company buys 10 Russian air tankers

There is a flurry of chatter that a company in the United States has purchased 10 Russian-built air tankers. This is not exactly true. David Baskett, President of TTE International Inc., has said for years his plan is to purchase 10 BE-200 amphibious air tankers and then lease them to operators in the United States.

Mr. Baskett told Wildfire Today Friday that he “signed a contract to buy 10 planes to be delivered over a few years”. He did not specify if any money has actually changed hands, but until the FAA approves the aircraft to be used in this country, which may or may not happen any time soon, and until he has a contract from the U.S. Forest Service or another agency, which may or may not happen at all, it would be foolish to spend $300 to $400 million on Russian-built air tankers.

BE-200 air tanker at Santa Maria, California, April, 2010. Photo courtesy of Michael Lynn.

But we have to give Mr. Baskett credit for pursuing his dream with vigor. He arranged for the expenses to be paid for two USFS employees to travel to Taganro, Russia the home base of the Beriev company, the manufacturer of the aircraft, to conduct the first phase of an air tanker evaluation using specs of the Interagency Air Tanker Board. Reportedly the result of that evaluation was mostly positive in relation to performing as a scooper air tanker, but not as a conventional retardant-carrying air tanker. The IATB requirements are very different for the two types. In the future it may also be qualified for retardant.

Mr. Baskett is in discussions with the USFS and the Bureau of Land Management about using the aircraft in this country, and is attempting to set up a test of the air tanker in the U.S. to compare its performance to other aircraft, including the military MAFFS C-130.

In April, 2010, Mr. Baskett brought a BE-200 to the United States to attempt to drum up some interest in the aircraft. It was on display at Santa Maria, California for a couple of days and made some demonstration drops.

The BE-200 can carry 3,000 gallons of retardant loaded at an airport, or water it scoops from a lake.

A question from a reader: can wildfires cause higher temperatures down stream?

Susan sent us this question:

Wow–great website. Very impressive!

That there’s a causal connection between hot, dry weather and wildfires is clear to me. What I am wondering about right now, though, is whether or not the reverse can be true. Colorado has several large fires going at once, right now, and coincidentally we have also had several days of record-breaking, 100+ degree days, including two in a row of 105 degrees in the Denver area. Is it possible that 800 degrees, spread out over a large area, could raise the ambient temperature by a degree or more?

I could not say either way, definitively, so I asked someone who is actually smart (unlike myself) — Janice Coen, Ph.D., a Project Scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research who conducts wildfire-related weather studies, among other topics. Here is her answer:

No, the fires are just too small compared to all that air. However, a big fire may affect the air temperature by the plume shading the ground from sun for hundreds of miles downstream. And affecting the cloud particles to reflect more sun.

Retired aviation professionals to conduct the 6th air tanker study

Bill GabbertJune 12, 2012November 12, 2020Uncategorizedair tanker, Photo by Bill G, study, Tom Harbour4 Comments

A crew of retired and current aviation professionals has been assembled to conduct the sixth in an unending series of air tanker and helicopter studies. We wrote about this latest study on June 7 after it was awarded by the U.S. Forest Service to AVID LLC, a company in Virginia. While I could not find any mention of air tankers or wildfire on AVID’s web site except in mentioning one possible function of an unmanned aerial vehicle, the effect of that apparent lack of experience may be minimized by their shrewd hiring of a staff of experts for this $380,000 contract.

Tanker 45 on the Whoopup Fire — Tanker 45 dropping in the smoky Ferguson Canyon on the Whoopup Fire July 18, 2011, protecting structures. Photo by Bill Gabbert.

Dennis Hulbert, who retired from the U.S. Forest Service after serving as the Aviation Officer for the California Region, told Wildfire Today that he is a part of an assembled a group of professionals that will conduct the study with AVID. The team includes a retired National Assistant Director (Aviation), a Fire Planner/Forest Fire Management Officer/Incident Commander, several retired NASA employees, and some “Industry Professionals PHD- types”. In addition, AVID has some unique aircraft synthesis and analytical tools that can be used to assist these folks.

The AVID/Hulbert group will be guided by an in-house collection of federal employees who are subject matter specialists.

Mr. Hulbert believes that his group needs to define performance measures for firefighting aircraft that would be acceptable to the Office of Management and Budget and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Office of Inspector General, both of which have been critical of the USFS’s earlier air tanker proposals for procuring expensive Lockheed C-130J aircraft costing $80-90 million each. Tom Harbour, National Director for Fire and Aviation for the Forest Service, and Mark Rey, former Undersecretary of Agriculture (a position that oversees the USFS) who is now a lobbyist for Lockheed, have both recommended the purchase of C-130Js, but Mr. Harbour may be moving away from that position.

In addition to defining air tanker performance measures, the group should also define them for the U.S. Forest Service, such as an implementation schedule, with dates and names of responsible officials, for moving forward. Accountability can be an effective tool.

The Forest Service should have made decisions about the long-term composition of the fire aviation fleet 10 or 20 years ago. But since they continued to kick the can down the road year after year, and crash after fatal crash, this approach, wielding the expertise of actual wildfire aviation professionals, might be what it will take to move the process forward. Aviation professionals were used in the first four of the earlier studies (and there may have been some on the secret RAND study), but little followup occurred.

Tom Harbour’s interview about air tankers

Bill GabbertJune 10, 2012November 6, 2013Uncategorizedair tanker, Tom Harbour5 Comments

The Missoulian has a good article about the present state and the future of the air tanker program. The author, Rob Chaney, interviewed U.S. Forest Service Fire and Aviation Management Director Tom Harbour, and here are a couple of quotes from the article:

More than half a billion dollars worth of new firefighting airplane contracts should come through later this month, as the U.S. Forest Service heads into one of the hottest summers on record.

Although the names of contract winners won’t be announced before June 25, the news can’t come soon enough for Missoula-based Neptune Aviation. The company hopes to boost its new BAe-146 jet fleet from one plane to three, just weeks after a fatal crash in Utah reduced its Korean War-era P2V tanker fleet from eight to seven.

The five-year contracts to four vendors would bring on seven modern retardant bombers to the national firefighting air force. Three companies would provide two new planes apiece at a cost between $125.7 million and $178 million over five years. The fourth vendor would add one plane for $66.8 million.

[…]

“There’s been a lot of talk going around how there used to be over 40 large air tankers and now we have less than 10,” Snyder said. “But we know the aircraft we have today compared to the aircraft of yesteryear are a night-and-day difference. It’s just a guess, but I think you won’t need to see the number of aircraft you used to see in yesteryear.“

Thanks go out to Dick

Will 12 air tankers be enough this year?

Bill GabbertMarch 24, 2012August 25, 2019Uncategorizedair tanker, Ken Pimlott, Photo by Bill G, Tom Harbour15 Comments

P2 air tanker on Whoopup fire near Newcastle, WY, July 18, 2011. Photo by Bill Gabbert

The 2011 wildfire season was relatively slow in the United States with the exception of Texas and two very large fires in Arizona and New Mexico. During most of the season there were only 11 large air tankers on exclusive use contracts and this year we are starting with 12. Ten years ago there were 44.

The request for proposal that the U.S. Forest Service issued on November 30 could result in as many as seven additional air tankers on contract over the next two years — up to three this year and four in 2013. However, these additional “next generation” air tankers that can hold 3,000 to 5,000 gallons of retardant and cruise at 300 knots do not exist. Potential vendors will have to be given contracts and then they will begin converting recycled airliners into air tankers, a lengthy and very expensive endeavor. After that, the aircraft will be required to undergo extensive testing which could lead to approval by the Interagency Air Tanker Board (IATB).

Minden BAe-146 in hangar — Minden’s BAe-146 during the conversion process. Photo: Minden, used with permission

One next-gen air tanker has partially completed this process. Late last year Tronos and Neptune received interim approval for a converted BAe-146 airliner which is being leased and operated by Neptune. At the end of 2012 the IATB will consider it for full approval, based on its performance on fires and how it functions at air tanker bases. Minden Air Corp. is also converting a BAe-146 and hopes to have it flying over fires this year.

The Chief of the Forest Service, Tom Tidwell, told a congressional committee on March 6 that this year the USFS will contract for two scooper air tankers (presumably CL-215s or CL-415′s) for the first time. We have a call in to the agency to find out if they will be on exclusive use or call when needed contracts. If they are exclusive use, this would bring the total up to 14 (counting the interim approval of the Neptune/Tronos BAe-146), still less than one-third of the size of the air tanker fleet 10 years ago.

In a letter dated March 7 that Ken Pimlott, the Director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) wrote to Mr. Tidwell, he expressed concern about the decline of the USFS air tanker fleet, which has put pressure on CAL FIRE to bail out the USFS when there are fires on federal lands within the state. Mr. Pimlott also said that the Large Airtanker Modernization Strategy developed in January is not sufficient “to meet the needs of the combined federal, state and local wildland firefighting missions” and that it does not consider the potential of very large air tankers (VLAT), such as the DC-10s and the 747.

The USFS has no interest in awarding exclusive use contracts for the VLATs, and has only offered call when needed contracts with no assurance that a company will receive any income. Evergreen said their business model for their 747 air tanker can’t be sustained with occasional use and did not sign a CWN contract. 10 Tanker Air Carrier is struggling to maintain one of their two DC-10s and a crew on a CWN contract.

An article by Ben Goad in the Press-Enterprise also addresses these issues. Here is an excerpt:

…Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who has been critical of the Forest Service’s handling of the situation, said she agreed with Pimlott that the Forest Service’s plan falls short.

“Millions of Californians work and live in high-fire threat areas, and a failure to address this issue jeopardizes lives and property,” said Feinstein, D-Calif. “Chief Tidwell admits the Forest Service lacks aviation assets to meet the wildfire response need, yet he has not requested sufficient funds to make the acquisitions, nor has he provided Congress with a timetable.”

Harbour maintained that the Forest Service is actively pursuing new contracts with tanker vendors and said he hoped to bring as many as eight into operation over the next two years, with two or three going into service this year. He acknowledged that the shortage could strain resources in the coming fire season.

“I worry about it, but that’s why 900 engines and 11 air tankers and 120 helicopters and eight (Defense Department) aircraft make me sleep a little bit better at night,” he said. “I worry about it, but we plan and prepare to deal with it.”

The Washington Post, on aging air tankers

Bill GabbertFebruary 13, 2012November 6, 2013Uncategorizedair tanker, Tom Harbour6 Comments

The Washington Post has an article about the U.S. Forest Service’s new strategy for replacing aging air tankers, a topic that we covered on February 10. Here is an excerpt:

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…“Trying to figure out the right attributes . . . the right specifications, and . . . working across the variety of land and . . . just coordinating with people takes a bunch of time,” [Tom] Harbour, [national fire director for the Forest Service] said. “We’re happy it’s out. It’s a part of the discussion we have to have with Congress.”

Money also played a role in the agency’s struggle to draft a proposal to modernize. Its pricey shopping list of planes was not acceptable to the Office of Management and Budget.

The agency sought state-of-the-art C-130Js, at $80 million each, a price it cannot afford, according to congressional staffers and aviation experts. The head-turning cargo plane flies at nearly 400 mph and can deliver an optimal load of 4,000 gallons of fire suppressant.

Harbour called the C-130J “an aircraft . . . designed for the kinds of stresses and strains of this work.” As a 20-year investment, he said, it “might be the best thing we could do.”

Thanks go out to Dick and Ken

Forest Service Bolsters Airtanker Fleet After Two Crashes

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