The New York Times has a major piece out today on the country’s aging fleet of private (contract) aerial tankers used to fight forest fires. Most are old, converted military aircraft —— think 1950s P-2 anti-submarine aircraft — and the Pentagon just isn’t buying anything today that’s suitable:
“The bottom line is the fires are getting bigger as the fleet gets smaller,” said Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon and the chairman of the Senate’s forestry subcommittee. “That is a prescription for trouble.”
What the NYT doesn’t mention is what happens when there aren’t enough private tankers available. The answer: The Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve get called in. To be specific, the North Carolina Air National Guard based here in Charlotte gets called in. The unit is one of four C-130-equiped ANG and AFR units in the country — the others are in California, Colorado, and Wyoming — trained in aerial firefighting using the Modular Airborne FireFighting System. So we can expect the already busy N.C. ANG to get busier in the future.
