The first-line defense against wildfires is retardant dropped from air tankers.  It often means the difference between stopping a fire early, or letting it spread, requiring additional ground crews and other kinds of air support.  Western states weather has been increasingly hot, dry, and windy; a prefect triumvirate for flash wildfires.

  Since 1988, the number of wildland fires over 1,000 acres has quadrupled.  The Western States are facing another hot, dry season this year.  And yet, the fleet of converted World War II surplus tankers has dwindled from 44 in 2002, to 17 this year.

  Many have been forced into retirement due to age and cost of rehabilitation.  They are clunky, not terribly responsive to quick turns or elevation changes; I can't imagine which pilots would have been willing to take on the tasks required, but some do. 

  There have been enough accidents in recent years that many of them have been grounded, then taken out of service permanently; one Neptune crash-landed in Broomfield, CO, on the tarmac just two weeks ago.  The pilot was mercifully uninjured, but the rest of the fleet was temporarily grounded. 

  When your neighborhood is burning, the sound of the deep, slow rumble of an air tanker to the rescue is reassuring; they can travel relatively long distances from the airports that refuel them and fill their tanks with retardant.  Watching one disappear into the smoke, drop its load, and eventually bank out of the clouds of smoke...seeking to gain altitude is awesome...the pilots say the heat produces dicey air currents that make steering the lumbering craft difficult; it looks like it.

  Other fire air defenses included SEATS, or single-engine air tankers, but they are limited in range and amount of retardant they can carry; these resources are contracted by the Forest Service and BLM; Colorado, for instance, has four seats available statewide, and when multiple fires are burning, resources can get thin.  Those contracts are due to run out next year; most fire officials see a need for more SEATS in any event.

  Helicopters, both single and dual-rotor, can lower buckets into ponds and lakes and carry the water to fires, but water obviously is obviously less helpful than retardant.

  Now here's the thing:  Congress needs to allocate a crappy $2.5 billion to fund a new fleet.  That's chickenfeed compared to the billions upon billions of war funding.

This article says the Forest Service hasn't made the case to the Department of Interior for funding the tankers; the Dept. of Agriculture Inspector General advises them how to 'make the case' for funding, and lists several bureaucratic screw-ups from the past.  Lisa Murkowski wants the FS to provide the reports, and others want hard data on proving cost-benefits of slurry-bombers.  That's fine; but unless I'm missing something, this issue shouldn't be put off until next year.

  Fire season is now, and fire season keeps extending.  Hey!  Ken Salazar!  Over here!

 The officials speaking out about this seem pretty brave to me; we all know that the Bureaucratic Squeaky Wheel often gets fired.

Here's the contact page for Interior;   http://www.doi.gov/public/contact-us.cfm

Their front page has some nice PR for their work in The Gulf.  I cut and pasted the email llink; my computer didn't like the Windows Live email it brought up.