Print friendly
E-mail story
Tip Us Off
Comments
Share Article
Facebook
Twitter
Google+1
del.icio.us.
Digg!
Yahoo! Buzz
Diigo
google
newsvine
reddit
technorati
Yahoo!
MyspaceA failure by the U.S. Forest Service to renew its contract with a company servicing firefighting air tankers at the Santa Maria Airport has kept that airport off limits to fixed wing planes deployed by CalFire during the initial 24-hours of the fight against the Jesusita Fire. As a result, the fixed wing planes dropping retardant on the Jesusita Fire were forced to re-load and re-fuel in Porterille, rather than Santa Maria. The trip from Porterville to Santa Barbara takes roughly one hour while the flight from Santa Maria is closer to 20 minutes. The extended turn-around time has limited the number of retardant drops that can be made during the initial stage of the fire.
UPDATE: According to the U.S. Forest Service’s John Bridgewater, the Santa Maria Airport opened for firefighting business around 11 a.m.
According to Jim Kunkle, who owns the concession at the Santa Maria Airport for the air tankers, three fixed wing planes landed in Santa Maria, reloaded and refueled before it became clear that the Forest Service contract with the company ICL, which manufactures the retardant and provides the personnel to mix it and load it onto planes, had not been renewed. After that, Kunkle said, the planes were dispatched to Porterville, 110 miles away. It remains unclear the exact extent to which this change affected the number of loads that were dropped by the two air tankers deployed Tuesday and the four that were deployed Wednesday.
Forest Service spokesperson Andrew Madsen explained that the Santa Maria contract would typically run concurrently with fire season, which officially starts May 15. Because fire season is beginning earlier - the Jesusita Fire started on Tuesday, May 5 - Forest Service officials in charge of contracts find themselves falling behind the needs of firefighters.
“This is a happening all over the country,” said Madsen, who explained that he was hopeful the problem could be rectified by an emergency decree recently issued by the Forest Service. He was optimistic that Santa Maria could become the deployment base for air tankers as early as noon on Wednesday. “We’re working to get this straightened out as quickly as possible,” he said, “but I’m not positive when that will be.”
The contract renewal was the subject of considerable controversy earlier this year when the Forest Service opted to renew the Santa Maria operation on an “as needed” basis, as opposed to the full service contract the Forest Service has had for the past two years. Kunkle complained to U.S. Senator Diane Feinstein and Congressmember Lois Capps that the downgrade would hamper firefighting efforts. He was joined in his concerns by the Santa Barbara County Association of Fire Chiefs.
Los Padres Forest Supervisor Peggy Hernandez defended the change, contending it would reduce inefficiencies and redundancies in service without compromising safety. Under the terms of either type of contract, the Santa Maria Airport should be able to service firefighting air tankers within four hours notice. Most bases throughout the state operate on a 24-hour stand by, noted Madsen.
This particular controversy doesn’t prove either side of the debate right or wrong. That’s because neither contract was ever signed. Madsen said that as soon as the City of Santa Maria agrees to provide the water needed to mix with the powdered retardant, service can resume from the Santa Maria airport.
Santa Maria took over the contract in 2007, when Forest Service officials concluded the Santa Barbara Airport was too small and too congested to provide tanker service anymore. Local firefighters have lamented Santa Barbara’s loss to Santa Maria. But in this instance, they’re even more upset, given the additional time it takes tankers to fly back to Porterville, reload, and then fly back for another drop. A round trip to Santa Maria is estimated at half-an-hour; to Portersville it’s closer to two hours. That does not include the time it takes to pump another load of fire retardant.
The number of additional loads that could have been dropped, had the supply base been in Santa Maria, remains the subject of conjecture, as is the effect those additional trips would have had on actual fire suppression.
For more info, see independent.com/jesusita or tune into KCSB 91.9 FM. Readers are encouraged to submit their own stories and photographs to fire@independent.com.
Previous Month
Comments
WHAT?!?!
Amazing... you better believe I'll be contacting my elected officials about this; I urge everyone else to do the same! I wish we weren't finding this out the hard way.
c_latrans (anonymous profile)
May 6, 2009 at 11:31 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Welcome to the future. Not pretty.
rubenken (anonymous profile)
May 6, 2009 at 12:06 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Amazing indeed. The capacity of government bureaucrats to bungle things up and let the tail wag the dog is mind boggling.
How about putting the fire out as fast as possible first and deciding on which papers to sign later?
Also, how about enlisting the Tea Fire culprits and any others caught sparking wildfires to go and cut brush for a year?
lmhauben (anonymous profile)
May 6, 2009 at 12:18 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Oh, by the way, in case you've never heard of Porterville, here is a map link.
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&tab=wl
lmhauben (anonymous profile)
May 6, 2009 at 12:23 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Yep, big government is the solution to our problems, all right. But our firefighters are still heroes.
JohnLocke (anonymous profile)
May 6, 2009 at 12:38 p.m. (Suggest removal)
very stupid
really (anonymous profile)
May 6, 2009 at 12:54 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Amazing - but not surprising.
This should done out of SBA airport - what the hell are they doing with all of that space besides parking the "Opes" plane?
BeachLivin (anonymous profile)
May 6, 2009 at 1:10 p.m. (Suggest removal)
A large number of the firefighters are people imprisoned by the justice system. Many are imprisoned under overly harsh drug laws. You who are voters might want to consider this the next time another simplistic "law and order" candidate asks for your vote.
sbripman (anonymous profile)
May 6, 2009 at 1:10 p.m. (Suggest removal)
What the heck do drug laws have to do with a fire? Sheesh, old hippies and their stoner rants.
More to the point, where's the P-3 Orion, DC-10, or even Pt. Mugu-based ANG C-130 Hercules equipped with sled-mounted MAFFS? Please don't tell me there aren't sufficient aerial assets, they're there. Somebody just has to get off the dime and make the call. And quit worrying about "naming" a fire.
Dumb.
NoletaMark (anonymous profile)
May 6, 2009 at 1:27 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Hi Mark:
I definitely don't qualify as a hippie, but sbripman is correct that inmates are being used to cut fire roads. He is also right to point out that a lot of our State's budget is eaten up by the prison industry, which lobbies for ever more incarcerations. Go check it out, we spend more on prisons than we do on higher education.
There are cheaper and more effective ways to deal with non-violent drug offenders than putting them in prison. Maybe the savings could go to fighting fires?
lmhauben (anonymous profile)
May 6, 2009 at 1:38 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Huge new smoke plume from fire site.
I agree with discussion, the prison industry campaigns to keep certain substances illegal in fact. Its disgusting.
Hope this fire ends soon.
EZK (anonymous profile)
May 6, 2009 at 2:25 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Those who want to want to keep government small and cheap have to accept that then there will not be the resources we have come to count on. The state faced a massive deficit this year and a stubborn minority refused to consider any taxes, even in the face of so much money lost by the huge budget delay itself. You can't rag on government spending and then get angry when they cut costs and aren't there for you.
Of course there are reallocations many of us would like to see. The prison lobby has caused problems and I also wonder if we should be paying for health insurance for elected officials given that many of us are under and underinsured. Those who love the medical insurance "free market" so much should be brought closer to it.
"The government" is not your enemy in a democracy. YOU are the government. What we need are things like a more informed and active citizenry and campaign finance reform.
And I'm all for sending nonviolent offenders home with ankle bracelets instead of paying for them to have 3 hots and a cot and health care.
As for this stupidity: we need some sort of legal protection so that those who need to act in an emergency can do so. Not having every single resource available at once to fight these dangerous wildfires is sickening.
I'm also very upset about the recent court decision that puts good samaritans in legal jeopardy if they try to help accident victims.
Praying for my hometown right now.
Beep (anonymous profile)
May 6, 2009 at 6:01 p.m. (Suggest removal)
PS I think we should contact Lois Capps and express our concern about #(%@% like this. Is there no federal statute that allows for seizure of resources in a declared emergency?
Beep (anonymous profile)
May 6, 2009 at 6:10 p.m. (Suggest removal)
We can recriminate all we want, and for sure there is plenty of cause for it, but as someone who lost a home in the Tea Fire and now doesn't know if I'll have a home tomorrow, I think what we really need to do is come together as citizens and design workable contingency plans. If the people lead . . . you know the rest.
If we want our democracy to begin working again, we can no longer be content with choosing between Twiddledee and Twiddledum at election time, and trust that elected officials have the answers. We need to become the government we want. How does it go? Of the people, for the people, by the people?
lmhauben (anonymous profile)
May 6, 2009 at 9:18 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I think you are right and I am very sorry for your loss.
Beep (anonymous profile)
May 7, 2009 at 3:28 a.m. (Suggest removal)
It's not big government, it's ineffective government hampered by the knee-jerk positions of one side or the other (typically in CA it is the No-No party, aka the Republicans, thankfully a dying breed). Without the constant and informed vigilance of the people, government will tend to lapse into a feckless bureaucracy, there is no doubt. But we have the tools to change that even though those who choose to use them are still a bare majority (how many eligible voters actually vote in any election cycle? considerably less than 100%, and often less than 50%).
The "big government" platitude is just getting really old. As another comment pointed out - We are the government, and it is our smallness that creates bad government, not the other way around.
tegrat (anonymous profile)
May 7, 2009 at 8:48 a.m. (Suggest removal)