This highly successful event for the Aerial Firefighting community is travelling to the USA at the end of March and will be the seventh in the series. The event will review the current trends in controlling wild land fires from the air and how this is likely to influence the future make-up of the next generation of aerial fire fighting assets and funding that will be required.

There has been a considerable increase in the size and frequency of wild land fires in the past decade resulting in many acres burned, large numbers of homes lost and other critical structures destroyed. At least seven US states have recently had the worst wildfires in their history. The Station Fire Enquiry has further intensified the debate on how should the US better prepare itself to tackle ‘Mega’ fires.

This Aerial Firefighting event will address the current challenges the US faces in dealing with the increasing problem of combating these fires and debate how we define and execute the correct path in going forward.

Mr. Marc Hartmann, Director of Wildfire Suppression and Co-founder of the FSM technology, said “We are delighted to be attending this prestigious event. It is an ideal forum in which to introduce our technology to government officials, aerial firefighting agencies and leading suppliers of aerial firefighting products and services from the US and around the world. This will be against a backdrop of calls to identify new fire suppression technologies that bring greater cost effectiveness to aerial fire suppression activities.”

You’ll find Wildfire Suppression exhibiting in Ballroom A, Booth 8, at the Sheraton Crystal City Hotel.

WASHINGTON (November 1, 2007) — Today the Chief of the Forest Service, Gail Kimbell, took the position that global warming was having a noticeable effect on the size of the area burned and the intensity and the frequency of wildfires in the United States. This testimony essentially contradicts White House handlers who just two weeks ago muzzled the Director of the Center for Disease Control Julie Gerberding from testifying to virtually the same facts before Congress.

Before testifying before the Senate, the White House deleted the following sentence from Gerberding’s testimony on climate change vulnerability: “The west coast of the United States is expected to experience significant strains on water supplies as regional precipitation declines and mountain snow packs are depleted. Forest fires are expected to increase in frequency, severity, distribution, and duration.”

But today, testifying before the House Select Committee on the links of global warming to wildfires, here is the exchange between Forest Chief Gail Kimbell and Chairman Edward J. Markey:

Question from Chairman Markey:

“Recently, Centers for Disease Control Director Julie Gerberding testified before the Senate on the impacts of climate change on public health.

“In her draft testimony she stated that because of climate change, quote ‘forest fires are expected to increase in frequency, severity, distribution and duration.’ The Bush administration removed that statement from her final testimony. Do you agree with that statement?”

Response from Chief Kimbell:

“I think we can demonstrate higher severity, larger fires and certainly over the last seven-eight years more frequent fires and a longer fire season.”

In her prepared testimony Chief Kimbell also said: “We can expect these temperature and precipitation patterns to lead to longer and more severe fire seasons in many areas of the United States and Canada.”

“It seems that the Administration is having a hard time suppressing wildfires of scientific accuracy from flaring up among its appointees,” said Chairman Markey. “I appreciate Chief Kimbell’s forthrightness, which I contrast with operatives in the White House who continue to try to use politics to trump science, particularly when it comes to the explaining what we face from a warming climate and what must be done about it.”

The Select Committee examined these issues on Thursday, Nov 1st at a hearing entitled “Wildfires and the Climate Crisis.”

Chairman Markey also sent a “Dear Colleague” letter on the subject on October 19th where he pointed to a study published in Science in 2006 (Below).

For additional resource information on the California wildfires, we urge you to visit Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s website, www.speaker.gov, which has compiled a helpful list of links to information and recovery efforts.