Zinke tried to *pull pilots from fighting wild fires* to fly him around on a private jet in Nevada.

[kpete]

His recently obtained schedule shows that he was accompanied by a Bureau of Land Management supervisor who usually manages firefighting crews. That day, there were 22 new fires raging in the Great Basin, and two fires uncontained.



Lucas Rhea, a helitack crew supervisor whose Facebook page shows he was actively working on wildfires through September, is listed on the flight manifest with Zinke for five stops on July 30. Interior did not say if Rhea was pulled from firefighting duty to accompany Zinke.

Zinke's schedule released late last year also doesn't specify why a high-ranking firefighting official accompanied the secretary on a trip that had nothing to do with the wildfires, but Swift told CNN that federal regulations require an Interior-qualified helicopter manager to accompany the secretary on privately piloted chartered flights.

Interior has not always been able to get the private planes it's wanted. Emails uncovered by the watchdog group Democracy Forward through a FOIA request and shared with CNN, show that last July, pilots were in short supply.

In July, Interior staff attempted to charter two legs of Zinke's trip, one leg from Las Cruces, New Mexico, to Santa Fe, and a second from Santa Fe to Las Vegas as part of his tour of federal lands in the West.

But "due to the active fires," an internal email says, "we're having trouble getting two pilots for the charter flights in Nevada and New Mexico. We're still waiting to hear from one more vendor, but please let me know if we are willing to proceed with the flights if there is only one pilot."

Not able to find a pilot, Zinke both flew commercial and drove.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/27/politics/ryan-zinke-nra/index.html