AP labels the 2012 Colorado wildfires worst in state history in this story.
My friend and fellow climate skeptic, nationally syndicated radio host Lars Larson, asks some pointed and pertinent questions about what appears to be some of the most idiotic policy ever devised by government. Since we’ve been covering some of the folly of trying to link the fire to global warming, I thought this government folly with trying to put it out would go along with the issues discussed here. – Anthony
He writes in an email to me from Friday:
I have new questions rolling around in my head every day but there are at least four things I know for sure this morning. This year the U.S. Forest Aervice will spend north of a billion dollars fighting forest fires across America. Billions of dollars worth of trees owned by the American people will go up in flames. And a $50 million dollar airplane that could put those fires out faster sits on the ground in Arizona because the U.S. Forest Service refuses to hire Evergreen Aviation. Now you may be saying, “There must be a good reason”. That’s what I thought, but then I remembered that government is capable of multibillion dollar stupidity on a daily basis. The Forest Service offers no explanation whatsoever.
And evergreen aviation points out that their 747 supertanker fire fighting plane has been hired by Mexico and Israel to fight fires and earned high marks. It drops ten times as much water as the biggest forest service tanker in use…and does it at half the cost per gallon. It’s big enough and fast enough to cover fires anywhere in America…and the forest service refuses to use it…and it’s your forests that are going up in flames.
Today’s statement from Evergreen Aviation about why the U.S. Forest service refuses to use its 747 flying supertanker firefighting plane.
http://www.evergreenaviation.com/pdf/Supertanker_Statement_062912.pdf
==========================================================
Date: 6/29/12
Evergreen International Aviation Statement Concerning the Supertanker
We felt compelled to release this statement due to the overwhelming amount of calls we have received concerning the availability of the Evergreen Supertanker. We at Evergreen are saddened by the fire devastation now taking place in many Western US states. For over 60 years, we have supported the US Forest Service in its important mission to battle and control fires, and it is our desire to continue this rich history of service. While our helicopters continue to work fires for the State of Alaska under State contracts, unfortunately, our Boeing 747 Supertanker Very Large Air Tanker (VLAT) aircraft awaits activation with the US Forest Service.
We have never been told why we have not been activated by the US Forest Service, so we can only speculate as to why we face this outcome:
1. We were offered a Call-When-Needed (CWN) contract a few years ago by the US Forest
Service (proving our technical viability), but we were never called into action resulting in
a multi-million dollar loss to our company as we were required to maintain and have
flight crew available should we be called. The only contract that will sustain a VLAT
program is an Exclusive-Use contract, which provides an income stream to sustain the
program even if the asset is not utilized. We invested over $50M to develop this asset in
the firm belief that we could better control fires as we proved in Israel and Mexico under
CWN contracts that we could afford to offer at the time.
2. There have been recent changes to the US Forest Service procurement policies. Today,
only small businesses are eligible for contract awards concerning air tanker assets;
Evergreen is not a small business and, therefore, is excluded from consideration for any
award.
3. The US Forest Service’s specification for Next Generation Air Tanker aircraft limits tank
size to 5,000 gallons. The Supertanker’s tanks hold about 20,000 gallons, which is
considered outside the USFS specification. The USFS just awarded contracts to four
small businesses with aircraft equipped with these smaller tanks, and excluded the
Evergreen Supertanker. Since World War II, tank capacities have been in the 3,000 to
5,000 gallon range, yet we continue to face the growing threat from mega fires today. We
believe the Supertanker represents an overwhelming response to this growing threat.
Please contact your state representatives in Washington DC to demand an examination of their current procurement policies concerning VLAT aircraft. The US Forest Service says it best: “Only YOU can prevent wildfires.”
==============================================================
Here’s Lars Friday interview with Evergreens VP:
Here’s Lars interview with Evergreen three weeks ago:
Here are videos of tanker that could be fighting fires in Colorado and elsewhere…that have killed Americans, burned houses, destroyed public property and timber
Where’s the President?
Check out my new page and “like” me at The Lars Larson Show
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No, that’s not the best weapon. The best weapon is a chainsaw. The Feds haven’t allowed that to be used for 20 years. We’re reaping the fiery whirlwind now.
Ben Wilson says:
June 30, 2012 at 1:54 pm
Wasn’t Evergreen involved with some CIA operations in the Reagan era?
It would be so politically incorrect to hire those folks. . . . . .
Tell that to the families whose homes have gone up in smoke.
How many hours of aircraft operation could have been leased for the price of the Solyndra kickbacks?
Robin says:
June 30, 2012 at 3:20 pm
“Anybody know if Evergreen is unionized or willing to always pay Davis-bacon wages?”
Robin,
Why should any of that matter, when life is threatened and homes are being burned by the hundreds? I have fought fires…. because my neighbors were threatened and it was the right thing to do. Many rural firemen are volunteers. They risk their bacon without consideration of some damn union rules or constraining regulations.
Honest to God! If your hair is on fire, does any of that crap matter?
“Sorry – Can’t help you. I’m a union man and we’re on strike! And that other fellow, well he can’t help you either because his is non-union and isn’t paid davis-bacon wages. And that Evergreen company with their huge airtankers sitting idle, well, they didn’t contribute any money to this administrations campaigns so they have been shut out of their political contracts, Citizens and Country be damned!
It defies basic reason and logic. It destroys forests, incinerates homes, and kills people!
Is THAT what our government is supposed to be doing with our hard earned tax dollars?
Really???? How angry about this kind of stupidity do you have to get before you will take actions against it?
This is yet another clear example of why this administration and the federal, state, and local politicians that support their floundering, bankrupting incompetence must be voted out in November!
Please, Please! Get involved in the concerted efforts in your locale to defeat these pols in November!
If not Now, When?
If not You, Who?
MtK
“Very simple answer to why Colorado is allowed to burn.
It’s a red state.”
Not we’re not, we’re purple at best and have been getting bluer as people migrate here from coastal states, especially CA.
‘worst in state history’
Not it’s not, 2002 is still worse, unless you consider the number of homes lost rather than the acreage.
Before the Buffalo Creek Fire in 1996, the largest fire in CO history was something like 3,000 acres. The difference? We used to regularly thin our forests, dispose of fuel buildup, and aggressively fight pine beetle infestations. Since around the 60s, those things no longer happen, hence the fuel buildup. As for the number of homes lost, that’s because more people are encroaching further into the Red Zone, the foothill areas that are drier but are also close to the cities so that you can have mountain living with a reasonable commute.
My brother says that the entire central part of the mountains around Silverthorne is completely beetle kill. If it goes, it will be the largest fire anyone has ever seen. We learned a lot about forests and fires after Buffalo Creek when we lost our family cabins.
One more thing, firefighters may be able to save a home hear or there, on the edge of the fire or when it’s moving more slowly, but when the winds are 65 mph, as they commonly are here, there’s NOTHING they can do. If you think they’re standing on your property in a fire storm trying to save your house, I have a bridge I can sell you.
Would the contractors currently working for the Forest Service happened to be owned by Obama campaign funding bundlers? There is a curious correlation between such folks and some of the green energy companies that have soaked the taxpayer for billions of dollars.
Pamela Gray’s comment about conservative male idiots takes into account that in the modern world of political correctness, one can get away with insulting European males, conservatives, and persons of particular religious beliefs, but not others. Pamela is quite safe in doing so in the larger PC world.
It does make many readers — even non conservatives — think rather less of Pamela, however. Too bad.
If you are surprised by this, you’re probably confused about the nature of government. Government exists for the sole purpose of looting the people. Government uses forest fires as an excuse to loot the people, therefore it adopts policies that promote forest fires and hinder the control of forest fires. All this makes perfect sense given that government funds itself through theft and has a monopoly on coercion.
Gyles Hanford says:
June 30, 2012 at 6:04 pm
==============
Do you always talk yourself into this type of circular logic, or did you save it especially for us ?
As far as the VLAT in Moutainous conditions , the VLAT is useful in drawing fire line. ridgetops lone open valleys, plains etc. the thing is it frees up smaller aircraft for more efficent attack on spot fires , breakouts, intial attack. Having herded 117’6”x 108’6″ and 100.000+ lbs.around the sky an mountains you would be surprized how meanuverable a big plane is….
Why would folks build in wildfire country? Because if you want to live and work in Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Oregon, etc. , you will need to build your home in wild fire country. Note that in California, some of the worst housing losses from wildfires have been the Oakland Hills (SF bay area), and various parts of the Los Angeles complex.
Let’s be fair here, flying a large turbofan airframe “low and slow” requires balls of vanadium, drop forged steel. Given that willing pilots exist who possess these attributes, surely the key factor is payload delivered per time interval…..and dam the procurement policy..
Australia had, some years ago, a 747 on trial. Several of the major problems included turnaround, available airports, and required terrain clearance. We seem to use lots of the smaller aircraft instead, and of course, do love helicopters – especially those Sikorsky S-64’s. Their ability to quickly get water from local sources and return to where needed, is a useful talent.
The Sikorsky can carry 9 tonnes, the 747 Supertanker, 76 tonnes.
The turnaround for the 747….I don’t know; The Sikorsky can drop its water, go to the golf course/river/swimming pool/river, re-fill and return quite quickly indeed. The 747 would have to land, be re-fillled, then take off, then fly to the fire….rinse, repeat etc.
The fires in Australia in 2009 burnt 450,000 ha (1,100,000 acres) and 2,029 homes. The bushfire fighting fleet (NAFC) seems to be 18 fixed wing and 35 rotary-wing aircraft.
I don’t think there’s a grand conspiracy, nor do I think the 747 hasn’t been thought of; rather perhaps it’s not (ever?) suited to fires in terrain.
We know the cycle; -> Government doesn’t do something -> Media reports FUD -> populace gets into ill-informed uproar -> Government sees votes departing -> government changes mind.
These fires are a result of climate change (global warming). They (gov) don’t want the fires to be put out because then climate change can’t be blamed. I’m Sorry but it’s that simple.
Mismanagement on a multiple and massive scale. One reason for so much fuel, thousands of acres of Lodge Pole pine all planted 90 years ago, now dead and dying from old age. Add lack of thinning and clearing, result fires. The beetle infests old diseased trees.
Dont let common sense spoil a good political fight.
Bush’s fault, right? And why not blame ex-FEMA’s Michael Brown while we’re at it. Nah… let’s just blame people for who produce CO2 and are therefore considered guilty of going about the business of living while Leftists do nothing but take a cut.
Curiosity has got the better of me; are you unaware of (what is or ‘who are’) ‘campaign bundlers’ or maybe ‘PC-code speech’ (i.e. “politically correct speech codes”) as it relates to acceptable public commenting and writing (with certain old, established mainstream groups or personages and religions being ‘open’ to all manner of derision without impugning one’s own exhibition of civility); we can get to ‘circularity of logic’ after first clearing up where any mis or non-conceptions may exist …
.
Reminds me of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill fiasco. The Europeans offered to lend us use of boats that could suck up huge amounts of oil on the surface water. King Obama refused the offer and told them to shove their boats up their butts.
The convair 580’s and P2V’s take about 4 minutes to actually load the slurry. Total time on the ground when in max effort attack, with 4 – 6 planes in rotation out of Jeffco Airtanker Base was about 14-18 minutes between takeoffs on average. Often you have one on final approach as the freshly loaded tanker is on the taxi way or holding to begin their takeoff roll as soon as the run way is clear.
Not to be the devils advocate, I do see some problems with the VLAT application in our terrain and environment.
The fire lines that they are trying to hit do not need, and cannot really use a 1/4 mile wide, 3 mile long drop.. Due to the terrain, fire lines or hot spots are much shorter and irregularly shaped, often on very steep terrain.
If loaded with slurry, the VLAT would just about empty the Jeffco Airtanker facility tanks in one pass, they have 3 tanks with the upper mark on the tanks at 11,000 gallons so their on hand stock is about 33,000 gallons when full. I am not sure if that is a concentrate or the actual mixture loaded on the planes though. Water is not as effective as the slurry in terms of its persistance (ability to provide fire suppression for a period of time) and its ability to penetrate to and smother the hot spots.
In any case the tanker base is not suited for 747 flights. Rocky Mountain Metro airport where the Jeffco Air Tanker Base is located is at an altitude of 5670 ft, with a longest runway of 9000 ft (29R-11L: 9,000′ x 100′ Grooved Asphalt).
Maybe someone can tell us what the minimum take off roll is for a fully loaded VLAT at a density altitude of 8,000 – 10,000 ft which is often see here in hot weather.
The largest Jet planes that fly out of RMMA are the corporate jets. The runways are not strong enough or long enough to service even small commercial jets. According to my calculations even at zero fuel and empty the 747 is too heavy for the runways.
Aircraft Weight bearing capacity on the longest runway:
Single wheel: 55.0
Double wheel: 75.0
The airport is only 10 air miles from the location of the Flagstaff fire, and about 60-70 air miles from the High park fire west of Ft Collins and slightly farther from the Colorado Springs fire, so air sortie time using the conventional tankers is not that long. If the VLAT flew out of a larger air field like DIA or Peterson which is significantly farther from the fires (with the exception of the Colorado Springs fire and Peterson), I suspect the smaller air tankers could in total deliver more fire retardant “on target” in a given amount of time than the VLAT could.
I have been watching and photographing the slurry bombers and helicopter drops for the last few days on the Flagstaff fire. The air tankers have to use some very creative approach flying to get the slurry drop on target in those deep ravines and steep slopes.
The 747 would be blasting a huge area with water that was well outside the burn area they are trying to hit. That creates significant risks for the fire crews on the ground and structures they are trying to protect. It does not do much good to stop the fire short of a structure but in the process to flatten buildings, and blow out windows with the “over shoot” of the drop.
When I was training for my red card, they made a point of telling us to keep an eye on the slurry bombers and make sure you did not get hit by the drop, It carries a significant impact and can injure or kill people on the ground and destroy equipment.
The links below are pictures of the terrain the drops are being made in on the Flagstaff fire which is similar to the others in the area. It is very unlikely they can make good use of a water/slurry drop that is longer than 1/4 mile or so.
(images copyright Larry Ledwick)
http://blackhorsephoto.net/wild_fire/slurry_drop_12C_0490a_web_sm.jpg
http://blackhorsephoto.net/wild_fire/slurry_drop_12C_0423a_web_sm.jpg
http://blackhorsephoto.net/wild_fire/slurry_drop_12C_0334a_web_sm.jpg
The VLT might however have been useful during the Last Chance Prairie fire last week that burned almost 45,000 acres in a day and a half.
The other question is does the VLAT require any specialized ground infrastructure that is not available at the larger airports that are designed to service the big jets of this class?
Regarding the National Guard activation, the law prohibits the government from competing with free enterprise. That is why they can only be activated when conventional free enterprise resources are totally allocated. If not, the military resources would quickly put the private contractors out of business. It is sometimes a frustrating policy but essential to keep government in their proper place. I don’t want the government taking food off the table for hard working private enterprise operations who have invested a good deal of their own money into creating a business. If the military could be activated on a first call basis, they would kill all these small commercial tanker operations out right.
Larry
Mac, would our government (everyone of whom in the upper echelons of power swore an oath to uphold the constitution) ever ‘run guns’ (i.e., actively procure and provide ‘cover’ for the safe passage out of the country) for the purpose of effecting some political goal, eventually possibly leading to a direct ‘casualty’ of one of our own border agents (Fast & Furious anyone)?
Cold, calculating decisions get made in offices far removed from the ‘front lines of pain and agony’ by politicos in every conflict by those who see only their selfish political goals … punishing Evergreen b/c of a labor conflict would fit right in with what has been called Chicago-style politics. Remember, anti-social personality disorder afflicts somewhere around 4% of the general population, sociopaths are estimated at being 3% (of all males) in society and psychopaths at about 1% of the population; Some of these people are in positions of power …
.
When I watch the video of the VLAT zooming in for a drop, why is the “Ride of the Valkyries” playing in my head? 🙂
Poida says (June 30, 2012 at 6:49 pm): “I don’t think there’s a grand conspiracy, nor do I think the 747 hasn’t been thought of; rather perhaps it’s not (ever?) suited to fires in terrain.”
Indeed, there may be very good reasons for not using the VLAT, but if so the Forest Service should be able to explain them.
Common Sense says (June 30, 2012 at 5:55 pm): “No we’re not [a red state], we’re purple at best and have been getting bluer as people migrate here from coastal states, especially CA.”
Apparently some parts of CO are redder than others. Daily Kos has this:
“As the flames approach the VERY conservative city of Colorado Springs we are reminded that this is one of the proud beachheads the Tea Party movement…
Perhaps as disaster is about to strike their city, these folks may wish there was a little more government around.
Thankfully, President Obama is traveling there soon. He is bringing the full force of the government to help this community.”
BWAHAHAHA! Perhaps he’s going to douse the flames with the contents of Air Force One’s toilets?
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/06/27/1103754/-Colorado-Springs-Rescuing-Conservative-Paradise
In perspective, “On October 8, 1871, the Peshtigo, Wisconsin forest fire consumed over 1.2 million acres of timberland. In its wake, 1,182 people were killed. This fire is considered to be the most deadly fire on American historical record. The 1910 “Big Blowup” fire in northeast Washington, northern Idaho, and western Montana sucked up 3 million acres…3 MILLION. This is more than the size of several American states.”
http://forestry.about.com/cs/forestfire/a/good_bad_ugly.htm
I got deja vu when I read this. In 2002 there was a massive forest fire burning out of control and the head of the forest service refused to allow a Russian IL-76 in to the country to fight the fire. The IL-76 water bomber is a four engine jet with a 11,000 gallon capacity and is about 10 times the size of the tankers they are using now. The forest service said they didn’t want to use it because it would have wasted water.
http://www.wnd.com/2002/08/15009/
Larry Ledwick (hotrod) says:
June 30, 2012 at 7:18 pm
============
Thanks for all the great info.
I hated to say it, it just seemed like the wrong platform for the ….. job.
Larry(Hotrod) very good analysis. I feel the DC-10 is better for more conventional use but
neither the DC-10 or the 747 is good for inital attack. Here is the BAE 146 that is about to fly.
A 3000 gallon jet that can operate out of DC4/6/7 airports….
http://www.mindenair.net/minden/BAE-146.html
As far as Russian jets go they are fine but the FAA says the must meet our standard.
There are soild reasons for this….
The folks who build house in or near pine forest in the west are unaware of the fact that these pine forests are short-lived and rarely last more than 150-200 years.
Usually lightening strikes start fires. The major conifer in the west is lodgepole pine (LP) which has two types of cones: regular cones that have a two year life cycle and serotinus or heat-sensitve cones. The serotinus cones can hang on the branches for many years or even decades.
High heat from fire is required to melt the resin so the scales of the cone can open whereupon the seeds drop straight to the ground. The ash from the burnt trees has minerals (eg. potassium. calcium and phosphorus) for new plant growth. The ash also sweetens the soil which becomes acid in pine forest due to resin acids in the needles and branches that fall off the trees.
This is the reason there are monocultures of LP in the western US and BC. The LP is the principle pine that grows well in these semi-arid regions. Jack pine is the only other pine in NA that has serotinus cones.
Houses in these regions should have tile or metal roofs and should be built with bricks, stone blocks or adobe bricks. Wood frame houses should have siding made from ceramic materials such as Portland cement. Metal siding could be used but it is expensive.
Houses should not have asphalt shingles or cedar shingles or shakes roofs. These are treated with fire retardents but these slowly leach out especially from the latter and don’t prevent fire when there is high heat.
Building houses in these pine forests is just plain dumb.