While Colorado burns, Republicans slam Hickenlooper for not funding air tanker fleet

Colorado’s wildfire season ignited all at once this week, with at least five blazes claiming homes, causing evacuations and stretching the state’s firefighting capability to its limits. It also ignited another political debate, as Republican politicians took to Twitter to complain that a new law authorizing the state to purchase its own fleet of air tankers was amended to make funding the program discretionary rather than mandatory. As a result, Colorado has the legal clearance to buy up to three 3,000-gallon large air tankers and three tactical aircraft, but no money has been appropriated for the purchases. Aircraft from other states have been summoned to help fight fires in southern and central Colorado, but when the most destructive one flared up — the Black Forest fire, which by Wednesday afternoon has destroyed as many as 100 homes in a neighborhood north of Colorado Springs — bill sponsor Sen. Steve King texted fellow Republican Sen. Greg Brophy with the message “no aircraft available.” King called the lack of funding for the air tanker fleet the “biggest failure” of the Democratic-dominated legislative session. “Colorado has four million acres of dead trees and we are one lightning strike, one accidental match strike, one intentional arsonist or terrorist match strike away from a catastrophic fire that will change Colorado for generations to come,” King said. “God help us and our lower basin neighbors if one of those catastrophic fires are in our watersheds.”...more