Budget

SoCal Fire Grows, Threatens Mount Wilson

13 Comments

Dominating the skyline of much of Southern California is Mount Wilson, one of the tallest peaks in the San Gabriel Mountains. It’s home to the broadcast transmitters for virtually every TV and radio station in the region, and houses the historic Mount Wilson Observatory, where Edwin Hubble discovered the redshift that suggested the universe was expanding.

It is now under threat from the Station Fire, along with the Antelope Valley town of Acton. Large portions of La Cañada Flintridge, northern Glendale and the Tujunga area are still under threat and/or evacuation orders.

As with other recent large fires this raises the question of how state budget cuts have hurt California’s ability to fight these fires. The LA Times claims it hasn’t, looking at the story of a DC-10 tanker that Arnold vetoed funding to bring permanently to CA. We now rent it as-needed:

The state budget that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed last month canceled the contract for California’s largest firefighting tool, a DC-10 jet,  to save taxpayers about $7 million.

It was replaced with a contract for two DC-10s on a pay-as-you-go basis, but at a higher hourly rate. But after several fires hit Northern California earlier this month, authorities reversed that decision and signed a 90-day contract for the plane, which costs taxpayers an average of $43,404 a day.

“The determination was made that it would cost more to have it on an as-needed basis than on an exclusive-use contract,” said Cal Fire aviation chief Bill Payne.

Cal Fire supplements these with two more tankers owned by the province of Quebec (yay for French Canadian socialists!), and for now they appear to be getting the job done.

But as California enters the high season for wildfires, it’s another sign of how the zeal for budget cuts is trumping every single other consideration. The decision about whether to buy or rent an aerial tanker should be based on need, utility, and best operational practice. Instead we are basing it on what helps enable Arnold Schwarzenegger to keep rich people’s taxes low.

There is a much bigger discussion to be had, as Mike Davis reminds us, about the fundamental injustice of spending all this money to defend homes built in known fire zones. But as long as we believe that fires should be fought no matter where they occur, we need to be ensuring that firefighters have the resources they need – and not working them on the cheap because our political leadership has decided that revenue increases are scarier propositions than properly fighting fires.

13 thoughts on “SoCal Fire Grows, Threatens Mount Wilson”

  3. that this is a real argument: There is a much bigger discussion to be had, as Mike Davis reminds us, about the fundamental injustice of spending all this money to defend homes built in known fire zones.

    Let’s assume we simply start contracting residential zones, pulling back from these supposed fire zones.  It seems to me all we do is create a new border up to which the fires will burn, threatening homes along there.  As long as there is some demarcation, a fire will march up to it and threaten what is there.

    Because ALL of california, especially southern california, is a damn fire hazard.  We compound this issue also by draining the state dry of water.  I’m pessimistic whether we will resolve these issues in a satisfactory way — I’m guessing california will be depopulated, by half to three quarters, within a century.  We’ll see, I guess.

  4. shout “a-HA!”… but first I did some calcs. At first glance, the cut makes sense. But then…

    The Gov canceled the final year of a three-year exclusive-use contract which made the plane available for 4 months per year for $5 million per year plus a $5500 per hour flight charge, three hour minimum. I’m guessing that the Times got this to add up to $7 million per year, and an average of $43,404 per day.

    At that daily rate, $7 million will buy us the DC-10 for 160 days… a little over 5 months… sounds like a good deal, eh?

    But CalFire says that under the new, as-needed contract, the DC-10 will cost $66,060 a day. At that rate, $7 million buys us three and half months, but with no particular start or end date to the season… this may still be a good deal.

    But the deal guarantees payment for three hours each day for a minimum of five days each time the plane is called into service. That amounts to about $330,000 each time the aircraft is deployed.

    $7 million will buy us 21 deployments, about 4 per month over a five month fire season… And we know that Cali’s fire season is longer than five month now. This is starting to look like not such a good deal.

    I couldn’t find out what penalty the state incurred to cancel the third year, and who knows what’ll happen if Oregon and Arizona want the tankers at the same time we do.

    There are two DC-10s available now, and a 747 tanker has just been certified. It can carry and dump 20,000 pounds, 8,000 more than the DC-10s. The 747 will fly for $1 million per deployment…ouch.

    We’ll be covered by big tankers this year… but I don’t think we’ll save any money. Personally, I don’t see why the State of California shouldn’t own these aircraft itself. They’re not the only tool in CalFire’s kit, but they’re most effective when they’re kept on standby and get to the fire fast.

    BTW – The original DC tanker clipped some trees with it’s left wing while bombing a fire near Tehachapi on June 25, 2007. Those pilots take real risks flying in turbulent air.

    God bless ’em.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T…

    http://westcoast911.com/wp/200…

Comments are closed.