As one of the world’s largest flying water tankers sits unused in Port Alberni despite nearly 180 wildfires burning throughout the province, frustration is growing among British Columbians – and so is an online petition to get the aircraft back in the skies.
More than 17,000 people have signed a Change.org petition calling for the government to sign the Martin Mars water bomber in Port Alberni to a five-year contract.
Amid the comments calling for the Mars to be restored to service, an image circulated online Monday apparently showing the aircraft parked within sight of a fire burning on Dog Mountain at Sproat Lake.
“I watched Dog Mountain burn all afternoon because the helicopters and land-based water bombers were inadequate to stop the fire…while the Martin Mars sat uselessly on land just across the lake,” said Port Alberni resident Janis Waite.
“The Mars can do in one pass what takes the other aircraft 5 plus passes to do,” wrote Chris Hewison from Victoria.
Wayne Coulson, the head of the company that owns the world-famous tanker, recently told CTV News that he offered the government a 30-day contract to get the bomber working again, but the province turned him down.
“We get many phone calls every day into the switchboard, people wondering where the Mars is,” he said. “We just give them the number of the minister of forests, that’s all we can do.”
The province now prefers to use smaller air-tractor Fire Boss tankers, saying that the much larger Mars isn’t as effective.
Despite media reports Monday that Coulson had inked a deal with the province to restore the Mars to service, he said it would be inaccurate to say a contract is in place. He said his company has sent all relevant information to the province, and that a deal could be in place sometime this week.
“I know that it’s an iconic resource, it is old,” Minister of Forests Steve Thomson said Monday. “There are lots of challenges with that resource. It’s not the most cost-effective and it can only be used in very strategic situations. What I can say today is that we are in discussions with the owner of the Martin Mars to see if something can be worked out as needed.”
The aircraft, built in the 40s and used by the U.S. Navy during World War II, is said to to drop the largest possible amount of water on a fire in the shortest possible time.
Working in tandem, the tankers can drop more than 54,000 litres on an initial attack and 27,000 every seven minutes afterwards, according to the Coulson Group’s website.
A similar petition to put the water bomber back in service was sent to Christy Clark last year, but nothing resulted from it.
Keeping the Mars on standby used to cost the province about $670,000 per season, on top of a $4,000 per hour rate while it was in use, according to the Ministry of Forests. It was also only deployed to 20 wildfires between 2007 and 2013.
The four replacement Fire Boss skimmers, which carry about 3,000 litres of water each, are contracted for $2.5 million per season plus a combined hourly use rate of $2,000.
Comparing the performance of the Mars in Kelowna in 2003 and the Fire Bosses in West Kelowna in 2014, the government found the bomber dropped 690,000 litres of water over 28 hours at a cost of 63 cents per litre, while the skimmers delivered 586,000 litres over 11 hours at a cost of 23 cents per litre.
For context, the province has already spent more than $80 million fighting wildfires this year, and spent about $122 million total the last year the Mars was in service.
Sproat Lake fire grows to 96 hectares
About 20 water-access-only cabins on Sproat Lake had to be evacuated and boat traffic was restricted as crews attacked the blaze on Dog Mountain over the weekend.
It grew to an estimated 96 hectares in size and destroyed an uninhabited cabin, but no one has been injured.
The fire is believed to be human-caused.
The province has already burned through its $60-million wildfire budget with months of hot, dry weather still to come.
With files from CTV Vancouver and a report from CTV Vancouver Island's Robert Buffam
