05/04/05 Coordinated effort vs wildfires, Pt. 2

The Governors of Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and Montana say they will be ready to help their neighbor states out if need be if a devastating wildfire burns out of control. The group of leaders made that known publicly during a recent meeting in Spokane to discussed coordinated firefighting efforts. In addition, as in years past, states will call upon their National Guard units to provide support in the event of fires, even though the numbers might be smaller due to some personnel serving on active duty in Iraq. But even with those resources available, each of the Governors acknowledges that more needs to be at the ready. And if you ask each leader, more will be ready. For example, Washington Governor Christine Gregoire says while each of the Northwest states has an informal agreement to help the other out during a major battle over wildfires, why not reach the same kind of agreement with states across the country? GREGOIRE: We also talked about collectively if it was necessary that each of us found it spreading so widely in the Pacific Northwest, we would go to Adjacents General across the country, and Governors and ask for their assistance, so it's not as if we stand ready each state individually, we stand ready collectively to fight forest fires. And in addition, there might be another resource available to the Northwest in battling major wildfires if it comes to that this year. Governor Dirk Kempthorne of Idaho says it is conceivable that firefighters from Canada could cross the border to aid colleagues here in fighting Northwest wildfires. KEMPTHORNE: We've developed in the last few years, protocol. We've worked with our respective federal homeland security agencies so that that first strike team may be from Canada. Or it may be a team from one of the states that goes into Canada and knocks down the fire. The Governors also plan to make a bigger push to the federal government for their assistance and support. One area is the increase of fixed winged aircraft to drop chemical to stop wildfires. It was last year that several of the large tankers were grounded by the government for safety reasons. Since then, many fixed winged craft have been restored to active duty, but the Governors say more are needed to adequately provide air support. The Governors also will ask the feds for blanket permission for immediate, rapid response to wildfires even on federal lands within states. Such delays due to red tape in the past have resulted in some fires in the tens of acres growing to thousands of acres before they were eventually contained.