High Park Fire, Colorado

It is a shame the current administration has allowed the fleet of such planes and helicopters to dwindle to a sad remnant! It is almost unimaginable that 130 square miles of forest and range should be allowed to get that large.

10 years ago, the Forest Service leased 44 such planes. Today, that force has dwindled down to 9.

Great comp of such a sad sight. I agree with Phil on the apathy of the our current group in Washington and the short sighted vision they have show to this problem. I her there are some additional planes being acquired a little too late.

One of the problems is that these planes were never met to be used the way they are. Most were old and needed to be retired. They should have created a plane for retardant drops years ago but its too late now, the government would never pay for it.

I like the timing of the shot. Maybe a tighter crop?

Good shot of the fire fighting activity. IMHO all the comments which are political in nature need to be left out!

When it comes to environmental photo-journalism, politics always plays a role. As long as everyone respects each other's opinion and everyone is polite, I will allow political comments. In the end, if the original poster, like Joshua here, doesn't want to get political, then we should respect their request.

Thanks for the comments everyone. I don't mind the talk of politics since it has remained respectful. This indeed has been a situation (at least) a decade in the making. The dwindling number of aircraft available to fight these fires because of the retiring of aging craft combined by the inability of administrations from both parties to take action in replacing them is sad. I agree that our current fleet is insufficient in number but most of the old air tankers that were retired were unsafe. Two firefighers died in a tanker plane crash during Colorado's last "epic" fire season in 2002. We don't need that to happen again.

I recommend this story from the Sunday edition of The Denver Post written even before this week's tragic events at the High Park, Flagstaff and Waldo Canyon Fires for more info.

Keep in mind that much of the devastation we've seen recently is also due to some very unpredictable weather. The military activated modified C-130s this week to fight the blazes but they weren't even able to fly in some of the extremely windy conditions we had. Aircraft is a big part of firefighting efforts but it's not the only answer. We also need to take a look at our forest management policies and the fire mitigation practices of our neighborhoods. Thanks again for the comments!

An excellent photo to document this awful fire. It's sad we don't have adequate aerial equipment to battle these fires.

Congrats on the WP documenting the sad state of affiars -

Sandy

Awesome shot Joshua. Recent news is a reminder of just how dangerous a job these fliers have. We need to be very appreciative of the work they do, and this is a great testament to them. Congrats on the WP!

Congrats on the WP. Do you know what is in the slurry?