Firefighting equipment

Open letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Canada’s premiers

A quick search of the internet quickly informed me that perhaps the leading company producing aerial wildfire equipment in the world is B.C.-based Coulson Aviation.

Unfortunately, we, in Canada, do not contract for the best equipment they produce. That stuff goes to Australia and California. Check it out on the Coulson website.

As of Dec. 5, 2022, Coulson signed a four-year fire contract with Western Australia for a C-130H Hercules Airtanker. This aircraft has a capacity of 15,000 litres ofwater. Think of it as the modern day equivalent of the fabled Martin Mars water bombers that were based at Port Alberni.

This is probably the only aircraft flying today that provides a hope of slowing up, or perhaps even stopping, a firestorm on the rampage with 100-foot high flames. It is a B.C.-made wildfire fighting behemoth, yet it has never been used to fight B.C. wildfires.

Premier Eby and Prime Minister Trudeau, acquire some of these for use in B.C. and elsewhere in Canada

But this is not all that Coulson Aviation has in its wildfire fighting inventory. It also has heavy lift helicopters that have been used in California, again in 2022, as well as two Boeing CH-47 heavy lift helicopters that can be used 24 hours per day. Those beasts can fight wildfires in the middle of the night. Imagine having the ability to douse a lighting strike in the dark.

It also has one Sikorsky S-61 helitanker and one Sikorsky S-76 intelligence gathering helicopter

These are aircraft supplied by a B.C.-based company, yet we do not use them. Why not?

Jim Bodkin, Vernon