ratherbehunting

I thank you for your dedication and work out there....I certainly don't mean to minimize it. All I am saying is unless you have seen CL215's scooping and dumping every 10 minutes in a serious run, you haven't seen the full effect of tankers on a fire. I have. I have never seen CL 215s used in this state and with two major fires in the last while, we are doing something very wrong. You are looking at it from the perspective of ground crews and that is all I am saying....in AZ we seem to be doing it backward from what other places do. Can you honestly tell me if they had 5-6 dedicated tankers working this fire from day 1 that would not have had an effect? Consider this wiki web snippet: "Fleet grounding: In the United States, most of these aircraft are privately owned and contracted to government agencies, and the National Guard and the U.S. Marines also maintain fleets of firefighting aircraft. On May 10, 2004, The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announced that they were cancelling contracts with operators of 33 heavy airtankers. They cited liability concerns and an inability to safely manage the fleet after the wing failure and resulting crash of a C-130A Hercules in California and a PB4Y-2 in Colorado during the summer of 2002. Both aged aircraft broke up in flight due to catastrophic fatigue cracks at the wing roots. After subsequent third-party examination and extensive testing of all USFS contracted heavy airtankers, three companies were awarded contracts and now maintain a combined fleet of 23 aircraft." and compare it with this one... "Some firefighting aircraft can refill their tanks in mid-flight, by flying down to skim the surface of large bodies of water. One example is the Bombardier 415. This is particularly useful in rural areas where flying back to an airbase for refills may take too much time. In 2002 an Ontario CL-415 crew proceeded to refill 100 times within a 4 hour mission, dumping an astounding 162,000 US gallons (613,170 litres) or 1,350,000 pounds of water on a fire near Dryden Ontario." All I am saying is that the politics of aerial firefighting is BS in this country. Press and environuts and professional bureaucrats have wrecked it imho. I checked the wind reports - the peak gust was 34 kts, the average wind was 20 kts. No offense but in the summer in the SW USA, that is standard flying wx. No clouds, great vis. Roosevelt full and 10 minutes flying time away. Again, one crash in 2004 and the bureaucrats ran for cover. Why we don't have a bunch of these 415's in the govt service is even more political BS. No - just observing and thinking outside the box we could do things a lot differently.

No one is bashing the front line guys or the 18 yr kids. They all did/are doing a great job. Kudos to all. 30 yr NF managers protecting their pensions and the huggers is another thing. I only gotta take exception to the first part about the 60 kt winds and flying and that is only because i've spent 30 years flying and watching fires get put out first hand by CL 215s. And yes in other states and provinces they apply tanker support first and hotshots second. If the tankers don't get it out, then they call in a hot shot crew who usually only gets in via helo or parachute. When I was exposed to this many moons ago the tankers were state owned and there were no political and/or monetary restrictions on calling in air support immediately even on a small tree 100 miles from the nearest road. In this state it seems to be backward - the ground crews do the heavy lifting and the air support seems to be secondary or non-existent. LA Fire district rents two of these every summer from Quebec and Ontario. BC, Ontario and Quebec have dedicated fleets of Air Tankers on call at all times. But they also have forestry industries with more powerful lobbys than the tree huggers. NO ONE, including me, is having any issue with the front line guys. Job well done. Thank you for doing a tough job! However, when it comes to NF and fire management in this state, I'll agree that the there are problems with the huggers and their lawyers. But again, other than the AZGFD guy on the news one night skewing CBD, everyone else has been silent and letting those morons get away with it. AND, if you are saying that there is no politics in NF management calling in real air tanker assets early enough, then we have some differences on that. BTW, the winds were less than 20 kts days 1, 2, and 3...and probably calm in the mornings according to my sources. ASNF/state managers were late in calling in tanker support and I'll stick to my guns on that criticism. And when people's homes started burning and the news crews all showed up, they called out that heavy which imho was/is nothing more than a PR stunt to quiet legit criticism. No forest lobby and no real state owned and available air tanker assets have led to two really bad and major fires that you sure don't see in any of the states and provinces with large lumber companies. We have had two major fires in 6 years and it ain't going to get better. We owe it to ourselves and our roles as conservation-minded people to ask what we are doing wrong. Maybe we do need to start to organize some protests and hire lawyers to sue - apparently that works for the other side.

Helo's are fine...but those buckets just don't hold the capacity of the tankers. When I got out of college I got offered a job working in forestry aviation management and choose to fly commercially instead. I sometimes wonder if I made the right decision...but when I see sad stuff like this I think I did. I, along with every other airline pilot out based out of PHX watched Rodeo get out of control and the tankers get called in late on that one and watching the slow response on this one was as just as bad. Hey look, for the gov't types out there I know it sucks - you are so constrained and so limited by what you can do. I heard about a NF guy who called in two tankers on a fire last year and he got reamed a new one....but the fire was out and never made the news. He didn't have any access and any way to get the ground crews into it. He made a judgement call and of course the managers above him called him in. He is still working apparently and ironically he made the right call because we aren't talking about another fire in AZ that got out of control.

Seems to me after two major fires AZ could use some of these based here full time.

Exactly! I've got the unit 1 hunt this year, and there's no doubt it will still be a great hunt - if the feds don't screw it up for us. This really chaps my hide. They were the ones who reacted too slowly to beging with and let a small fire turn into a HUGE fire, now they want to over-react when it's too late to do any good. Typical knee-jerk big-government B.S. Tell you what, if they close the forest and G&F says too bad to tag holders, I'll probably take my chances with the forest circus and just go hunt. I wonder where AZG&F will stand if you have a valid tag, but the feds say you can't even access the areas that weren't affected by the fires. The whole North half of unit 1 was untouched, and as others have pointed out, even the burned areas stil have tons of huntable country. Who reacted to slow to begin with and let a small fire turn into a huge fire? I will be the first to admit being an arm-chair quarterback on this one. I wasn't there when the big decisions were being made. But the fact remains that this fire was small and containable for around a week before it doubled, then tripled in size. You don't need a PhD to recognize that a fire in the Bear Wallow wilderness, an area devoid of pretty much any management for 20+ years, combined with very little spring moisture and daily high winds - over 50 MPH on some days, could turn into a huge mess. So, to answer your question, I think the USFS reacted way too slowly and let a small fire turn into a HALF MILLION PLUS acre fire that didn't have to happen. Any 3rd grader could grasp the situation and make an informed decision faster than our Feds did. Nahhh...you are fine. Just flew with a guy who's brother works for NF - we talked all about the politics and money involved in calling in tankers on this fire. The response was wayyy slow - they should have had tankers working this fire from day 1 or 2 ....it took them 5 days from what I heard. No forestry industry in this state and a powerful leftist environmental lobby not to mention some folks in the forestry dept who love the let it burn concept led to this sad event. When the TV camera's showed up.... they finally called in the evergreen DC10 at $1 million for the "we are doing something....loooookie...." for TV. I flew fire patrol one year in college and know a lot of guys who flew tankers and we all agree that the majority of politically minded NF managers wait to long to call in serious air assets on some of these fires.

I used to fly fire patrols a long long time ago. This is the second big fire in AZ and it should be a huge wakeup call, instead the press and the pols don't get it and we are the laughingstock of the fire business...and yes it is a big business. Without the forestry people pushing for a better air tanker presence in our state, this is what you get. 5 tankers 10 days and 300k acres in is way to little. A fire this big anywhere else would have at least 10 dedicated tankers - the high capacity/rapid refill type too. We have some big lakes 10 minutes flying time to these fires. Of course that costs money and this state has none. Couple that with the eco crowd and their lawsuits and this is what you get. Unfortunately you can never stop idiots with matches or mother nature from starting fires. You can have an active plan and the resources in place to stop them or slow them down fast. If they had 5-10 dedicated tankers (not helos) on this fire from the get go this would not have got out of control like it did. I can remember flying in and out of PHX on the Rodeo - one of the main airline arrivals was over that mess at the time - and looking down and seeing the tankers showing up only at the peak of the fire and it was like throwing a bucket of water on a raging 6 alarm warehouse fire. Too little - too late. I was flying with one of my buddies who also flew tankers way back when and we both reminisced on how fire bosses like fires to get bigger before putting anyone on them. More dollars for their budgets I guess. The sad part is when people and their homes get caught in this forest fire mess.

SOLD

sold pending funds

Hunted the unit 1 side of the vernon-mcnary road May 6 - no sign and no response to any calling. Went for a hike with the family around the lee valley reservoir on Sunday and saw plenty of fresh elk sign but no turkey sign at all. With the cooler temps and high wind they might kick back in gear later this week but I doubt it.

Is it just me, or did I notice that they aren't putting up the hunt success ratios (as opposed to the draw success stats) until Hunt AZ comes out in May - well after the draw? This is obviously one small item, but a crucial item and it is why we diligently fill out the surveys. Obviously things can change but it sure helps me in determining my choices.

Spent Friday Oct 1 hunting with my son and 2 friends in Yuma using those AZGFD tags. Most all of the fields have been plowed and we saw a grand total of 5 hunters. We drove the whole valley, spent some time flushing some quail near the river north of the reservation. We saw a grand total of one hen pheasant in the sole remaining cotton field left unplowed. Very disappointing. If you have a tag for next weekend I would not waste the gas - we drove the river as well and spoke to about 10 border patrol guys who gave some hints and recent reports but all agreed that with all the fields plowed the birds had probably retreated to the heavy cover by the river. You can buy indian land tags for $50 at Spragues in town, but we did not even see any sign of the birds nor any hunters on the indian land at all either. I think this really needs to be set earlier...once those fields are all plowed and replanted, the birds are gone. We did have a dog and we did cover a lot of land, but there was no birds.