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# Fired up over fire policy
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/fired-up-over-fire-policy-editor/
- Published: 2008-05-10T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-24T19:34:15.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Opinion, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*By Ed Nemechek Adelanto, Calif.*

Fire season is coming upon us, and CalFire (the California fire fighting agency) informs me again that the DC-10 Supertanker fire fighting aircraft is still classified as “Not an initial attack aircraft.”

This still means the DC-10 has not been, and will not be, used at the beginning of fires until all other methods have failed. I think it’s obvious this is a suicidal policy that allowed the wildfire holocausts in Southern California in the past when the DC-10 was not deployed at the start of the fires, wind or no wind. This policy also appears to be a semi-continuation of the U.S. Forest Service policy, including their deliberate refusal to use any Supertankers for over 12 years during which time scores of people died horribly, including firefight-ers, and tens of thousands of homes were burned including national defense nuclear facilities. Supertankers could have saved all that destruction but were never called.

We must continue to demand that the DC-10, and Boeing-747 also, be used as initial attack fire fighting aircraft, for if we don’t we’ll be condemned to continuous mega-fires this year destroying our lives and homes with the acquiescence of so-called fire officials who apparently think fire is something they can fool around with. We have to compel CalFire and the U.S. Forest Service by public pressure to use the DC-10, and Boeing-747 Supertankers. We can’t allow this deliberate carnage to continue. Contact every politician in California, including the governor, now.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on May 10, 2008.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/051008.pdf?ref=smdp.com)