科罗拉多参议员谢利扬D-Wheat Ridge, and Sen. Steve King, R-Grand Junction, plan to introduce a bill next week creating a state fleet of aircraft to fight fires, reports The Colorado Springs Gazette.
In a perfect world, King said Colorado would have three air tankers, three command and control planes and three or four helicopters.
“We don’t have any of that,” he said. “What we have is 4 million acres of dead trees, dead biomass. We have hopefully the end of a very long drought. We have the 2012 fire season rolling right into the 2013 season.”
The lawmakers plan to introduce a bill detailing the program, which would leave about 40 days of the legislative session to address the issue.
The U.S. Forest Service has a fleet of tanker planes, privately owned and contracted by the agency, dating from the 1950s that respond to wildfires across the nation.
Jahn said that fleet has dwindled from 44 planes a decade ago to nine, leaving officials in fire-prone Western states wondering what happens when resources are tapped.
The authors of the bill are developing a budget for the project and a timeline for implementation. It’s urgent, though, they said, given a 2013 wildfire season that burst into flames before the first day of spring.
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