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Federal tanker base will close Operation moving to Klamath Falls; Jackson commissioner upset By Paul Fattig The U.S. Forest Service will shut down its air tanker base at the Medford airport in fall 2001. Announced Friday, the decision to close the base and construct a primary air tanker base in Klamath Falls comes after a three-year study by the agency and the Pacific Northwest Wildland Fire Coordinating Group, which represents firefighters throughout the region. It also comes after the Jackson County Board of Commissioners and others launched an effort to persuade the Forest Service to keep the base open. "We addressed many of their questions and concerns about this decision, and we still feel that from a regional and national perspective, it is the best course of action," said Mike Edrington, regional director of fire and aviation management for the Forest Service. That�s not how Jack Walker sees it, however. "I don�t think they listened to us at all," said the county commissioner who led the fight to keep the air tanker base in the Rogue Valley. Citing testimony given by experts at a local hearing about the impact of closing the Medford air tanker base, Walker noted the response time from the Klamath Falls base will be seven to 15 minutes longer when an air tanker is deployed to drop fire retardant on a wildfire in Jackson and Josephine counties. That could mean the loss of large sections of forests as well as rural homes, he said. "There are some areas where they could respond to quicker out of Klamath Falls, but those areas aren�t high priority," Walker said. "What about areas that are just out of Grants Pass or the Ashland watershed?" Walker said that creating more roadless areas or a national monument in the region while closing down the local air tanker base defies logic. He was referring to the proposal to create a national monument on Bureau of Land Management land on Soda Mountain east of Ashland as well President Clinton�s call for protecting more than 40 million acres of roadless areas on the Forest Service�s national forests in the West. "Is the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management talking to each other about these decisions?" Walker asked, then answered, "I don�t think so." But Edrington said the agencies will continue to provide "excellent fire protection coverage" in southwest Oregon. After the Medford base is closed, tankers will be deployed out of Klamath Falls, Redmond and Redding, Calif., he said. Tom Reilly, acting forest supervisor for the Rogue River and Siskiyou national forests, agreed. Different firefighting agencies will continue to work together as they have in the past, Reilly said. The decision to close the base came after examining safety issues, cost savings and efficiency, officials said. At the 4,000-foot elevation, the Klamath Falls airport with its longer runway and less air traffic provides a better launching pad for air tankers, the study concluded. The agency expects to save up to nearly $1 million a year by closing the Medford base. The Medford airport has served as a tanker base since the early 1950s, shortly after the Forest Service began using planes to help snuff out wildfires with fire retardant. Red-bellied air tankers taking off from Medford historically have covered the area from the coast to the crest of the Cascade Mountains, and from Yreka, Calif., north to Roseburg. Tankers cost from $1,000 to $3,000 an hour to fly. Nationwide, 41 air tankers under the current contract will be available to the Forest Service this summer, including nine in the Pacific Northwest. The decision to close the Medford air tanker base will not affect this year�s operation, officials said. Obituaries | Sports | Business | Classifieds | Tempo | Prime Times | So Oregon Sites | Outdoor Journal | Subscribe | Contact | Movies | Advertise | Real Estate Showcase | Archive | Editorials | Letters to the editor | Religion | Wake-up Call | NIE | Cyber Chef | Job Network | So Oregon Weather | WSJ Northwest | Forums | AP Wire | AP Money | F.A.Q. | Awards Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. The Community Newspaper Subsidiary of Dow Jones & Co, Inc Copyright �The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA