Posted on 07/17/2017 7:19:54 AM PDT by gattaca
More than 50 large wildfires are scorching land this morning across the western U.S. But a new firefighting tool is sitting idle in an airport hangar in California because the U.S. Forest Service refuses to let it fly.
The converted Boeing 747 jet, nicknamed the SuperTanker, can drop almost twice as much fire retardant as the largest airtanker currently in service.
"We're the very largest in the world -- there's nobody out there that comes close," said Jim Wheeler. His company, Global SuperTanker, turned a 747-400 series passenger jet -- one of the biggest in the sky -- into the world's largest fire extinguisher.
"We can drop a line of retardant about three kilometers long, about a mile-and-a-half," Wheeler told CBS News correspondent Mark Strassmann, as the plane performed a test run in Colorado last fall.
But in this country, it's virtually worthless unless the U.S. Forest Service gives it permission to fight fires -- something the agency has yet to do, even though the plane was certified by the FAA last September, and has since fought fires in Chile and Israel.
"The frustration factor is exceptionally high," Wheeler said. "It's very hard to watch property burn and lives lost, and we can't get in and help."
In May, the Forest Service issued a request for new airtankers, but said it would only give contracts to planes with a dispensing capacity of between 3,000 and 5,000 gallons. The supertanker can drop more than 19,000 gallons of water or retardant at a time.
Wheeler said, "It begs the question: if your house is on fire, are you going to call the smallest, slowest fire truck?"
Some firefighter advocacy groups suggest the Forest Service might be trying to control its budget, causing delays for the plane, which could cost as much as $250,000 a day to operate. The Forest Service says it can't comment on the dispute because Wheeler filed an official protest last month.
According to Wheeler, the aircraft can be filled in less than 30 minutes. But it's not just the speed and size that make the Supertaker powerful; its pressurized tank system atomizes the water when it's released, rather than just dumping it, like a bucket. "It doesn't break down tree limbs, it won't crush cars or buildings," Wheeler said.
And a firefighter or a stranded resident who happens to be under this big dump of water will be be fine. "You'll get wet, but won't be killed," Wheeler said.
Strassmann asked, "Why hasn't someone done this until now?"
"There's a lot of cost involved in doing this, a lot of testing and a lot of paperwork, and I think that scares most people," Wheeler replied.
California's fire agency currently has an agreement to use the plane, but can't deploy it until the Forest Service gives its approval. It's an expensive aircraft, but at a time of ever-growing wildfires threatening lives and property, Wheeler feels his service is a bargain. "You're not going to put out a 4,000-acre or larger fire with buckets and helicopters. It's just physically impossible," he said.
This coincides perfectly with the “let it burn” mentality in the Forest Service bureaucracy.
They are almost touch and go at Reno/Stead these days. Passed over our house outbound to Long Valley fire yesterday several times. Don’t think the DC-10 came by but some smaller 4 engine drop planes.
Well, that's jobs provided, right?
Reminded me of an anecdote of how Milton Friedman was once taken to see a massive government project somewhere in China back in the Seventies or Eighties. Thousands of workers using shovels were building a canal. Friedman was puzzled. Why weren't there any excavators or any mechanized earth-moving equipment? A government official explained that using shovels created more jobs. Friedman's response: "Then why not use spoons instead of shovels?"
Indeed. Why not just pay individuals with drones to drop sugar packet sized quantities of flame retardant?
When I worked for the United States Forest Service, it was guided by policies put into place by people who had been in WWII.
They had seen large scale death and destruction.
They didn’t want any of that in this country.
They have been replaced by people who want to save the trees.
The road to hell is paved by good-hearted people.
The Forest Service turned out to be a major obstruction to those fighting the big fire in Bastrop Texas in 2011. And there was no Federal land involved. Clearly an overreach, and suspected by some to be politically motivated due to the lack of Obama Koolaid drinkers in that area.
Maybe that this is a great story for CBS, after all they are ‘fake news’...not letting people know what is going on and not telling the truth in an article to let the people know what is really going on...
747 SuperTanker receives federal approval – Wildfire Today
wildfiretoday.com/2017/01/10/747-supertanker-receives-federal-approval/
Jan 10, 2017 - Above: The 747 Supertanker conducts a test drop at Colorado Springs May 4, ... to Jennifer Jones, a spokesperson for the U.S. Forest Service.
I would not put it beyond them in the least.
Liberals are extraordinarily vindictive. It is no wonder unions are run by liberals and composed mostly of liberals.
They would have this whole nation burn down to blame Trump!
“I don’t know what the politics of those involved are, but I am willing to bet a large sum that politics is the #1 reason this has not been approved.”
Yes, why should all of us taxpayers pay for California fire protection?
Exactly why the go-ahead for this was given by the Obama Regime figuring that Hillary would be the Obama third term.
As when Texas was burning and Perry asked for federal help and Obama denied it.
“What is really at stake is the big money from large fires. Whole cities spring up near large fires. “
Then let those affected cities, counties and states pay for it.
Fire and the Forest
We often regard fire as an agent of destruction, but to Nature, it is an agent of necessary change. Fire changes one form of energy to another. Green plants change light energy to chemical energy, fire changes chemical energy to heat energy.
Fire breaks down complex organic molecules to smaller ones - the same thing that occurs when we digest food. The protein in a piece of meat cannot be used directly by the human body to build cells and tissues. We must eat the meat before large protein molecules can be broken down to smaller amino acid molecules, recycled through our bodies, and rebuilt into human tissue. When a fire changes a log to ash, nutrients bound in chemical compounds are released and changed to a form that is more water soluble. In this soluble form, nutrients percolating into the soil are again usable in the growth of other plants.
Fire also effects a more visible change. Ash and nutrients occupy less space than trees and shrubs. By creating openings in forests, fire changes space relationships. Species that remain in these openings may be fire tolerant. Other species that cannot withstand fire are eliminated. Thus, fire changes both the composition and the density of the forest. This change will remain for several years and affect the fuels available during the next burning cycle.
Scientists who study plant and animal relationships tell us that forests in this part of the country owe their existence and continued presence to a long history of periodic fires. This association of some tree and shrub species with fire is an example of adaptation.
Forests in Florida have existed here for at least 12,000 years. During that time, thousands of fires occurred annually. Plant species that survived these fires did so because of special features or characteristics they possessed. Plant species lacking these features were eliminated from frequently burned areas; their distribution has been confined to areas where fires are less likely to occur, moist areas such as bays, swamps, and creek bottoms.
Fires, like many natural events, are somewhat cyclic. The cycle is governed by conditions such as general climate, topography, soil type, existing vegetation, and other factors. Accordingly, the repeatability of the cycle varies. Before 1900, fire-susceptible areas probably had fires every 3 to 10 years. In areas less likely to burn, the cycle may repeat every 10 to 100 years. Cyclic, recurrent fires of the past 12,000 years were important agents of selection in determining plant species and distribution in Florida.
I remember the Lake Tahoe fires where homes were lost because the environmentalists wouldn’t allow the property owners to clear out the underbrush around their houses. They were very vocally unhappy about it.
Tic-Tac-Toe!
As a reference, operating costs for the VC-25 aircraft (747) that serve as Air Force One are pegged at $175,000 per hour. I assume the 747 tanker could perform multiple sorties a day, so by government standards, it’s almost a bargain.
on the ground fire fighters have a union?
Why should we be the least bit surprised, the USFS is part of the the USDA, about which President Eisenhower remarked: “ It’s hard to be a farmer when you are 1,000 miles from a farm and your plough is a pencil!”
I guess the other question is, where is the Secretary of Agriculture here?
President Trump’s “problem” is that virtually none of his cabinet picks have one tenth the energy and willingness to fix stuff as he does.
Can't tell whether you are trying to joke about Metric vs English units, but you don't sound like someone who has "eaten a lot of smoke"...
Wildfires (once they've destroyed their point of origin) burn linearly. The resulting damage is expressed as area, but the active flame front is irregularly linear.
My preferred mode of extinguishing a wildfire (properly garbed) is to get behind it (in the burned-over area and to attack the active fire front line from the rear.
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