Posted by Frank Garcia (98.224.3.44) on January 12, 2010 at 09:10:01:
In Reply to: CALFIRE being sued posted by Jim Barnes on January 10, 2010 at 10:46:20:
In 2003, an environmental group “Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics” filed a lawsuit in Oregon regarding the use of fire retardant on wild land fires after 20,000 fish were killed in Fall Creek. The court ruled against Mark Rey and considered charging him with contempt of court for not having adequate regulations in place to protect the environment against the negative effects of long term fire retardant.
This law suit opened the door for other environmental groups to protest the use of wild land firefighting chemicals. ICL is reworking their formulations to make it more “environmentally friendly” but this problem with long term will not go away.
A few years ago the CDF began using water enhancers, (gel) to help combat wildfire in the initial attack stage. Out of the Airbase I worked at, we dropped more than 900,000 gallons of different types of gel, (two different liquid concentrate and one granular product). In my opinion, I think the gel products, (properly applied) were far superior to fire retardant during the initial attack stage of the fire. The product worked great in grass/brush and dried in about an hour that allowed ground crews to burn out fuel making line construction location easier and thus safer. As it had no retardant ability, it was only marginally effective in heavy forest canopy as the effective use relied on ground personnel being present, (but does any aerial applied product really work that well in heavy forest canopy?). The gel product was cheaper, more environmentally friendly and was made by several companies which encouraged some price competition. Presently, only one company makes long term fire retardant. A sole source vender is usually not conducive to the best price.
The CDF was not able to get the gel contract in place for last season, but hopefully we will see it next fire season in some of our bases.