Firefighting helicopters heading to Iraq in 2006 (Colorado National Guard)

[Barrett808]

Firefighting helicopters heading to Iraq in 2006
By Ann Imse, Rocky Mountain News
December 7, 2005

Most of the Colorado National Guard's 12 firefighting helicopters will be in Iraq during next summer's forest fire season.

"Next fire season will be a challenge for us," Maj. Gen. Mason Whitney, adjutant general of Colorado's Guard, told the legislature's Joint Budget Committee on Tuesday. He said it is possible that the helicopters' 18-month deployment will keep them out of the state for the 2007 fire season as well.

Rich Homann, fire supervisor for the Colorado State Forest Service, said the state has other aircraft available for firefighting and can manage without the Guard's helicopters.

But at least two National Guard helicopters were among nine used to scoop water from cattle ponds to help prevent the approaching Mason Gulch Fire from burning the town of Beulah last summer. That fire forced the evacuation of 5,000 people and burned 11,300 acres.

Whitney said the precise number of the Guard's heavy-lifting Black Hawk and Chinook CH-47 helicopters being sent to Iraq will remain classified until shortly before they depart.

But he did say "most" of the eight Black Hawk UH-60s and four Chinook CH-47s now at Buckley Air Force Base would be leaving for Iraq for 18 months.

(more)

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_4295513,00.html

[indepat]

1. This after Katrina?

[leftchick]

2. aren't you feeling so much safer?

cuz we are fighting them there instead of here? Doesn't it all make sense now??

:puke: :banghead: :grr: :mad: :puke:

[RC]

3. Now watch for the biggest forest fire in decades this Summer.

Either that or clear cutting the forest to save it from fire.

[bemildred]

4. Any bets on how many come back, and in what sort of shape? nt

[TomInTib]

5. My thoughts exactly. The summer dust storms just chew up the

BlackHawks.

Colorado will be the recipient of some huge replacement/repair bills.

And then there is the fire factor.

[rodeodance]

9. I heard/read about a week ago that we will be leaving lots of our military

equipment over there.

[Robb]

6. Christ in a bucket

You have got to be kidding me. :banghead:

[Hekate]

7. Brilliant minds at work -- again

For those of us in the dry, dry Western states, including California, this is just stupid beyond words. It's just incomprehensible. The 1990 Painted Cave Fire in my county marched from the mountains almost to the sea, cutting off US 101 and all the other exit roads in that direction (which for reasons of geography run parallel to 101). It wiped out whole neighborhoods, over 600 structures, came to within 3 miles of where I live, smoke and ash everywhere. A friend showed up on our doorstep in the middle of the night when sparks started blowing into her cul-de-sac.

Firefighters absolutely depend on mutual aid from other regions in these big blazes -- they're sent where it's worst, and they need the National Guard to pitch in.

I'll post this article into the chat list of a tribe of Colorado relatives and see what explodes there. Most of them are liberal, some quite conservative, but they all know fire. And oddly enough, they also know Beulah (which was referenced in the article) because my late grandma and their late grandma, who were sisters, owned summer cabins there for some 50 or 60 years.

Hekate

[rodeodance]

8. didn't we learn anything during Katrina!!!

[politicat]

10. We're down 4 inches of rain this year and will probably be dry again

this spring.... Next fire season's likely to be a record breaker... and they're sending or copters to Iraq? What for???? There's nothing to burn!!

Katrina II: Fire on the Mountain
Showing on News programs and infotainment networks near you
Coming Summer, 2006

[MindPilot]

11. So all a terrorist needs now is a rental car and a matchbook

They sent a couple of our SoCal Coast Guard cutters to Iraq last year.

Those of us in San Diego know all too well what happens when the firefighting equipment isn't readily available. In fact just yesterday a gasoline tanker crashed here near the stadium and it took ten minutes for underfunded and overworked firefighters to get there.

Homeland security my ass, these fuckers care more about Iraqis than they do Americans.