Legatus wrote:
I work with the NWCG, and they are quite aware of the value, and lack of value to water drops. They also know the value of keeping the politicos out of their business. Water drops keep the politicians and public happy with the efforts. They don't hesitate to shift these resources to a place that the water drops would be helpful, when it is appropriate. The pilots are not naive about their role and when it is effective, and when it is not. Basically they will deliver water drops constantly, because if they don't, then they have to deal with the political and PR fallout. When there is a useful place for the drops, then that is where they will happen. There is also constant experimentation with chemical fire suppressors that may increase the effectiveness of air drops by large margins.
My expectation was that the water drops were actually more useful in targeted situations (small flareups that threaten to restart, saturating areas to prevent the fire from moving toward your ground staff, etc.), but that you had to be "en route" already to be useful in those situations.
I don't expect that air firefighting is useful in stalling the general conflagration. In fact, about the only thing that I presume is truly useful for fighting these fires is actually bulldozing a firebreak and patrolling it. Everything else has fairly minimal impact.
-a -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
