Reduction in NJFFS contract fixed wing aircraft

Some of you who have checked my blog within the last two weeks may have already seen the NJ Forest Fire Service (NJFFS)  2012 Spring Fixed Wing Contract Schedule. I'll repeat it here for purposes of simplicity.

Division A North
Alpha 2 - AgCat 300 based at Aeroflex Airport - 3/26-5/4
Alpha 3 - AgCat 300 based at Aeroflex Aorport- 4/7-4/21
Division B Central
Bravo 1 - Air Tractor 602 based at Coyle Field 3/31-5/7
Division C South
Charlie 1 - Air Tractor 602 based at Downstown Airport 3/30-5/6

If you have been following my blog for a year or more, then you might be thinking that there are fewer SEATs on contract this year. And you will be right.  I can only speak for NJFFS fixed wing (SEATs) contract aircraft going back to 2009, the year that I started writing about aerial wildland firefighting on this blog.

If you check out the links at the end of this article, you will see that for the 2009 through 2011 fire season there were two SEATs on contract in each of the three NJFFS Divisions for periods ranging from 33 to 44 days, give or take. There may have been a seventh on a short term contract, e.g. an AgCat was on a five day contract in Division C in 2011.

I don't have information to link to on contract aircraft prior to 2009. But there is an article from 1999 on Downstown Air in the September 1999 edition of Ag Air Update. In 2009 this article was still available on the archives of Ag Air Update. This article has been removed from the Ag Air Update website so it is no longer available on the internet, but I did take some notes. Downstown has provided fixed wings (SEATs) to the NJ Forest Fire Service under contract going back to 1969. In addition to reading that the NJFFS first contracted with Downstown in 1969, the article made reference to Downstown contracting with the NJFFS for nine AgCat bi-planes (eight of their own plus one they leased) and a Dromader that floating between bases as needed.

So the 1999 article on Downstown tells me that there were as many as ten fixed wings under contract with the NJ Forest Fire Service in the late 1990s.  I don't know about the number of SEATs on contract in New Jersey between 1999 and 2008, but I can speak to the last three years (2009-11). That is during each of the last three years there were six fixed-wing (SEAT) aircraft under contract during the spring fire season with a possible seventh on a short term contract. Look at the coming fire season where we will have one fixed-wing (SEAT) in each division during the spring fire season with a fourth on a fourteen day contract in Division A.

Six or seven fixed-wings on a NJFFS contract down to three or four on a NJFFS contract in 2012.

Three or four SEATs are not enough.

NJFFS 2009 SEAT contracts
NJFFS 2010 SEAT contracts
NJFFS 2011 SEAT contracts

Revised March 20, 2014