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Keith Riddler
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — US authorities buy millions of gallons a year from one supplier 20 years later, a new wildfire suppressant We're testing, but observers say the expensive strategy is overly obsessed with aerial attacks at the expense of hiring more fireline excavation ground crew.
The Department of Forestry used more than 50 million gallons (190 million liters) of retarder for the first time in 2020 as increasingly devastating wildfires plague the west. Last year it exceeded 50 million gallons to fight the largest and longest wildfire in history in California and other states. The cost of flame retardants over the last two years has reached nearly $ 200 million.
For the past 10 years, agencies have used 30 million gallons (115 million liters) annually.
"The two wildfires are not the same, so it is important to have different tools available to the fire chief, depending on the different situations in which the fire may occur," says Forest. The bureau states in an email. "Flame retardants are just one of those tools."
According to the Forest Department, tests started last summer using magnesium chloride-based retarders from the fortress this year. Summer is also continuing.
The fortress claims that its retarder is more effective and environmentally friendly than the products offered by the perimeter solution. The company says its ammonium phosphate-based retarder is excellent.
The fortress began in 2014, centered on former wilderness firefighters with the goal of creating better and more effective flame retardants for the environment. With facilities in California, Montana and Wyoming, it explains that it is the only alternative to fertilizer-based flame retardants.
The company is headed by Chief Executive Officer Bob Burnham. Bob Burnham began his career as a crew member of a hotshot fighting wildfire, eventually becoming a Type 1 incident commander, with hundreds of firefighters as some of the country's largest wildfires. He often called on aircraft to disperse a plume of red flame retardant. He said he is now wondering after learning more about fertilizer-based flame retardants and developing new flame retardants.
"This new flame retardant is better," he said. "Much less damage to sensitive planetary resources and significantly improved flame retardancy on the ground."
Magnesium chloride, the main component of Fortress products, is Great in Utah. Extracted from Salt Lake. According to the company, it is a method and process that is more environmentally friendly and produces less greenhouse gas than phosphate mining and processing. Last summer, the Forest Department announced that it would test the company's FR-100 and this summer it would test a version called the FR-200.
Perimeter solutions with facilities and equipment throughout the west have dominated the market for over 20 years, despite many name and ownership changes over the years. rice field. The company's Phos-Chek LC-95A is the most used flame retardant in the world. The company is migrating to a new retarder called Phos-Chek LCE20-Fx. It is made of food grade ingredients, making it a cleaner product.
"We are confident that the products we manufacture are the safest, most effective and most environmentally friendly products available," said Edward Goldberg, Chief Executive Officer. Says. “We have spent decades in partnership with (Forest Services).”
Phosphate is mined in multiple locations. Goldberg said he is taking phosphate both domestically and internationally, including Idaho. He refused to go into the details, but said the company was independent of China and Ukraine and replaced other suppliers in Russia and Belarus.
The Department of Forestry said this summer's testing with the FR-200 would be limited to single-engine air tankers flying from the air tanker base in Ronan, Montana. .. This seems to prevent mixing of corporate retarders.
Two forestry monitoring groups claim that both types of retarders are harmful to the environment, and agencies should spend less on retarders and more on firefighters. Claims to be.
Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics Executive Director Andy Stahl and Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics, and Ecology Executive Director Timothy Ingalsbee, both ammonium phosphate-based retarders are inherently invasive. A fertilizer that can boost a variety of plants and can cause some algae to bloom in lakes and reservoirs when washed downstream. They said that magnesium chloride-based retarders are essentially salts that inhibit plant growth where it falls and possibly harm the species at risk.
Both are concerned about direct collisions with waterways that are delayed and potentially harmful to aquatic species. Aircraft are usually limited to giving the stream 300 feet (90 meters) of buffer from the retarder, but the Forest Department allows them to fall into the buffer under certain conditions and can occur accidentally. There is also.
"Their theory is that it is a war and will suffer incidental damage during the war," Stahl said. "It's a complex of fire and industry, a combination of corporate and government relationships, and I'm not really interested in ending the war on wildfire. It's growing."
Today, much of the west is drought. The National Inter-Ministry Fire Center in Boisy, Idaho reports that there have been more than 31,000 wildfires burning about 5,000 square miles (13,000 square kilometers) so far this year. This is well above the 10-year average of about 24,000 wildfires and 2,000 square miles (5,000 square kilometers) of burning during the same period.
Over the last three decades, climate change has made the west much warmer and drier, making wildfire seasons longer and longer, and scientists have long warned that the weather will get rougher as the world warms. ..