During the end of July and the beginning of August "nearly one million acres were burning in Idaho," according to the Boise Weekly. For many decades, rural firefighters have sometimes gotten help from pilots in aircraft loaded with thousands of gallons of fire suppressant. The world's largest water-bomber, a Boeing 747, has the ability to "lay down a one-mile-long swath of fire retardant." This aircraft "has a payload of 24,000 gallons, eight times the C-130, and would cost the Forest Service as much as $20,000 per hour.

To put this in context, "currently the National Interagency Fire Center's (NIFC) fleet of 16 large tankers consists of 16 heavy air tankers, each capable of dropping 3,000 gallons of fire retardant in one fell swoop to aid firefighters on the ground. The cost of operating a conventional tanker is $5,000 per hour."

Credit: Evergreen International Aviation, Inc.

Unfortunately, the supertanker was put on cargo duty. Garrett Brown of Evergreen Aviation told Boise Weekly that his company "has spent more than $15 million in the development of the supertanker before taking it off contract this summer with the Forest Service and refitting it for cargo use in the Middle East."

This task-switch occurred because after a "2002 crash of a conventional C-130 tanker in Nevada, which claimed three lives," an investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) "led to the grounding of the entire Forest Service fleet of 36 1950s-era C-130 tankers, three of which had crashed in recent years because of wing stress fractures." The NTSB decided that the Forest Service was responsible for "the air-worthiness of any aircraft contracted to fight fires on federal lands. Before the investigation, the agency only had to meet FAA requirements on their own," Pat Norbury, Forest Service National Aviation Operations officer, told the Boise newspaper.

Although Norbury's office worked with NASA engineers and Sandia Laboratory officials to develop guidelines for maintenance standards for its firefighting fleet, "only 19 of the original 36 passed certification and operate. None of them are C-130s, but have been replaced with P-2V Neptunes and P-3 Orions."

As for the much-needed Boeing 747 supertanker, Brown said it will be available again in May 2008.

Idaho, of course, isn't the only Western state wanting to help firefighters quell raging forest, chaparral and grass fires. California officials moved forward in 2006 with a supertanker of its own. Tin Tanker Corporation's DC-10 jumbo jet was flown for the first time last year under contract with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE). Although the DC-10 "carries about half the payload of the 747, according to Bill Payne, chief of flight operations for CAL FIRE, "it's been fantastic":

We used it last year on six fires and dispensed 200,000 gallons of retardant. It carries 12,000 gallons of retardant and can lay a mile line 50 feet wide. It has absolutely been a success.

On the other side of Idaho, there's also plenty of need for support for firefighters as forest fires have threatened Montana and Michigan. In Montana, by August 8, about 139 square miles of fires in three different areas burned forestland. Some 1,500 homes were threatened by a fire near Seeley Lake.

Farther east in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, "a six-day-old blaze had burned 24 square miles."

"The air drops [from aircraft] generally don't put fires out, but they can buy the ground crews time to build their control lines. It is a complex process, and timing is critical because ground crews may have to judge where a fire will be in four days time," Kim Frederick of NIFC, told the Boise Weekly. High winds also make air drops ineffective. Nonetheless, aircraft can make a real difference in the fight to protect people and trees.

Roughly $10 billion were lost to wildfires in 2002, according to Evergreen International's Web site.

Resources

No Help from Above
by Tony Evans
Boise Weekly, Aug. 8 2007

Montana Fire Crews in for Long Haul
by Susan Gallagher
The Associated Press (via CNN), Aug. 8, 2007

Why a Supertanker?
Evergreen International