Tanker Certification Process Could Come Too Late For Arizona's Fire Season
TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) -- Plans to raise standards for 33 grounded air tankers and get them back online for fire duty across the country may come too late for Arizona's fire season.
``I just really don't think any kind of a certification process could happen quick enough for us here,'' said Dean McAlister, fire management officer for the Coronado National Forest.
In the interim, the extra helicopters and single-engine airplanes the U.S. Forest Service plans to bring online to replace the grounded tankers aren't all that beneficial in the desert Southwest, where bodies of water are few and far between, according to McAlister.
``They carry a small volume of water and their flight speeds are slow enough that it takes them a long time to do their turnarounds out here,'' he said.
The fire season in the Coronado usually ends the first week in July with the arrival of the monsoon, said McAlister, adding that reinspecting and recertifying tankers will most likely take longer than three weeks.
The Forest Service grounded the aging fleet of 33 planes last month, citing safety concerns.
Officials said Wednesday that they have worked with the Federal Aviation Administration to develop guidelines to assess the planes' airworthiness.
At a committee hearing on firefighting aircraft held Thursday, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told members that the 33 grounded aircraft dumped 20 percent of all the retardant used to suppress last year's wildfires.
``They clearly are a critical part of our nation's firefighting arsenal, especially when used for initial attacks on emerging fires, where the use of tankers buys time for fire crews on the ground and when used to protect buildings,'' McCain told the hearing.
U.S. Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., has begun drafting legislation that would certify tankers that met FAA requirements as of May 31, 2004.
