Contract Glitch Blocks Air Tanker Drops

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.

Welcome to the future. Not pretty.

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?

Oh, by the way, in case you've never heard of Porterville, here is a map link.

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ta...

Yep, big government is the solution to our problems, all right. But our firefighters are still heroes.

very stupid

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?

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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?

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?

I think you are right and I am very sorry for your loss.

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.