FEINSTEIN STARTS AIR-TANKER PUSH.Byline: Steve Geissinger Sacramento Bureau Sen. Dianne Feinstein Dianne Goldman Berman Feinstein (born June 22, 1933) is the senior U.S. Senator from California, having held office as a senator since 1992. She is a member of the Democratic Party. on Monday demanded that the federal government solve the problems that grounded more than two-thirds of its big, aging firefighting planes, prompting moves that could put an additional one-third of the fleet in the air. In the wake of Daily News stories over the weekend on aerial firefighting Aerial firefighting is a method to combat wildfires using aircraft. The types of aircraft used may be either fixed-wing or helicopters. Agents used to fight fires may be either water or specially-formulated fire retardants. problems, California officials also scrambled for funds to fully muster the state's modernized air-tanker fleet. California's senior U.S. senator said she contacted the departments that oversee federal firefighting - the U.S. departments of Interior and Agriculture - seeking solutions to problems revealed by the articles. ``We urgently need to have tankers,'' said Feinstein spokesman Howard Gantman. The Daily News reported Sunday that just seven of the 33 air tankers, usually under contract to the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management, are mechanically sound enough to fly this summer. Three others are so unsafe they cannot operate over populated areas in case they crash. Grounding of the rest follows recent crashes in which federally contracted air tankers broke up in midair. Gantman said letters dispatched to the departments asked essentially, ``What are you doing? These newspaper stories raise a number of very troubling questions and she wants to be assured they have the situation under control.'' By the end of the day, the U.S. Forest Service said it had launched a study assessing the operational service life of nine more large air tankers - an effort that could clear the way for their use by June. Other legislators in Washington and Sacramento said Monday that the federal government needs to modernize and expand its air-tanker firefighting fleet, following California's example. A representative of the powerful House Armed Services Committee The term Armed Services Committee could refer to:
v. rav·aged, rav·ag·ing, rav·ages v.tr. 1. To bring heavy destruction on; devastate: A tornado ravaged the town. 2. portions of Southern California Southern California, also colloquially known as SoCal, is the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Centered on the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego, Southern California is home to nearly 24 million people and is the nation's second most populated region, two years ago - said staffers were looking into issues surrounding the lack of newer, military-surplus planes for conversion into air tankers. At the same time, GOP lawmakers in the state Legislature A state legislature may refer to a legislative branch or body of a political subdivision in a federal system. The following legislatures exist in the following political subdivisions: The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CDF) or CAL FIRE is the State of California's agency responsible for the administration of the state's private and public forests. to ground three of its 23 modernized, fast-attack air tankers daily. In an attempt to offset the loss of big air tankers, which can drop 3,000 gallons, the U.S. Forest Service said it is bolstering its fleet with small, crop duster-type planes and helicopters, which officials said have some advantages. Steve Geissinger, (916) 447-9302 sgeissinger(at)angnewspapers.com |
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