Wildfires

[+ sync]

I concede that my concept may be flawed, but I'm thinking that somewhere in the U.S. Government budget there could be found funding for a fleet of maybe ten or twelve tanker airplanes that could be dispatched to make shorter work combatting these massive wildfires.

[Njguy2]

In concept it sounds simple to use the tankers, but you have to look to who owns the land - Federal or state government, or private landowners.  From a simple internet search, it suggests that the Federal government fights fires on their land (National Forests, National Parks etc) and the same goes for the individual states for their land holdings.   Where the grey area arises is how unpredictable fires are and their movements across land boundaries from one type of owner to another. 

[mike carey]

Forest fires / wildfires / bush fires don't respect boundaries. In most countries fighting them is coordinated by the government jurisdiction in which they start as it's simply inefficient to have multiple agencies responsible for fighting them in an area. In Australia, each state has a fire and rescue service, largely responsible for urban fires, and a separate service for fires in the countryside, although there is some overlap between them and slightly different arrangements in different states. In my state of NSW the Rural Fire Service has local, largely volunteer brigades (some with a cadre of employed career staff), and regional coordination centres, and a state command centre that has the authority to move brigade elements around the state. It also coordinates public information and warnings, and runs an app to disseminate information directly to the public. The RFS also contracts and operates fixed- and rotary-wing firefighting aircraft (many of which also operate in North America in the northern summer). The NSW RFS has its own B737 tanker, that is available for, and is frequently deployed to fight fires in other states. In fire emergencies the respective state bush fire agencies (RFS in Queensland and the ACT as well as NSW, and the Country Fire Service/Authority in South Australia and Victoria) coordinate resources across the country, with brigades regularly being deployed to fight fires in other states. (When I lived just outside Sydney, during one fire emergency, I saw a CFS fire truck, from a town over 1000km away in South Australia across the street from my home.) Some agencies like the national park services in each state also have firefighting capabilities that are deployed initially inside park boundaries but they quicky fall under management control of the state fire coordination centres when events escalate.

The federal government provides some funding when necessary to the states and IIRC assisted in funding the B737. Other than that they are a back stop, and provide some resources (like the Defence Force personnel, equipment and logistics) and funding. There has been talk of them funding more tankers, either as a federally run fleet of aircraft or more likely to be run by one or more of the larger states. Most of the aerial appliances here are commercial, either wet leased (that is, crewed and operated by their owners) or leased but flown by Australian crews. (One Canadian C-130 tanker crashed in our Black Summer fires with the loss of its three US crew members, and a B737 recently crashed in Western Australia, with the crew amazingly surviving.) There is no reason why the US couldn't also do that. I would add that resources and personnel from the fire services in Australia and New Zealand deploy almost every year to North America, and the assistance is often returned in kind (fire fighters form Ontario or BC arriving at Sydney airport make the news).

In the long run, who owns and funds fire-fighting tanker aircraft matters less than having good coordination of all firefighting assets and having air tankers deployed and coordinated to effectively support the whole effort. You need fire controllers who understand the capabilities, and ideally a liaison officer from the aviators to provide advice to them.

[Luv2play]

I was just watching a show on Dick van Dyke the other night, celebrating his 97 th birthday last year in his home in Malibu with all his family, dozens of them down to great grandchildren. The backdrop was gorgeous as it was his patio on the coast. 
 

Two days ago, on the eve of his 98th, they had to evacuate.