Chips Fire threatens Butt/Caribou

[Darian]

huntindog,.... Here's hoping you do well up there....

Adam,.... great photo's. Beautiful country. It will return to the same in time and you're young enough to be around to see it happen.

[Frank Alessio]

It all comes down to money...We need to stop sending our Money to foreign Governments and start fixing this Country up again before it is too late....

[Rich Morrison]

Unfortunately it's not as simple as all that. The way our government allocates money is as convuleted and burecratic as you would expect. I am a professional pilot and I am about to complete a master's degree in aviation mangement with an emphasis on safety. I've focused most of my research during my program on the air tanker industry. There are a number of problems with it. I actually interviewed with Aero Union in Chico back in 2004. They were not interested in hiring me. I did not have and A&P certification, which I can understand. But as an experinced military aviator I could tell there was some bias there against me due my disciplined flying background and the perception that military flyers may be too cautious for that type of flying. This is all strictly my opinion on what went on in the interview. This industry is constanly plagued with safety incident after safety incident. Some of which are caused by mechanical issues, but most of which are flight discipline problems. And I base that on the reasearch I have done. In fact, the chief pilot that interviewed me at Aero Union was killed in the crash of tanker 26 near Chico less than a year later. It was a training mission and they flew a fully funciontal airplane into the terrain. I realize the flying is dangerous, but almost all the recent air tanker crashes, either mechanical or pilot error, were quite preventable. A big part of the problem is that the US Dept of Agriculuture oversees the contracting of these aircraft and the FAA oversight falls under the agriculural governance so it's a completely different set of rules and different pot of money than the FAA we are used to seeing dealing with the airline industry. Again my opinion here, but until we stop throwing too little money at ageing and abused tanker fleets and don't take a hard look at a modern air tanker force with a bit more regulation (I can't believe I'm saying that) we will continue to see the same results and a continued decline in our ability to fight fires from the air.

[Mike O]

Problem with the fires we get are definately related to the previous "surpress, suprress, surprise!!" ideology.

Whewe spent so much time not allowing fire's natural cycle to occur, we created a lot of undergrowth and crowding. Studies I have read show that modern fires burn hotter, creep a little slower, and therefore "clearcut" forests a little more.

I have just returned from Yellowstone, where trees from the 1988 fires are just now getting reestablished in some areas. a ranger said that the fires in some areas burned so hot and slow in some areas, that it killed the seeds in the cones and underground, so it took longer. A lot of areas had really small trees

[Tracy Chimenti]

For some resaon, they have one tanker on the fire now. I hope like you guys are saying that this fire is mainly reducing litter and ground fuels, but from the way the blow-up looked from Yuba yesterday, I would not be surprised if it wasn't crowning some nice stands. I also hope we don't get hit with huge spring rains that will wash hillsides into rivers.