Canadians Sending Giant Water Bomber To California

The Martin Mars "is much larger and will add immensely to the capability and the potential to save structures down here," he said. The fires could be larger than the ones that devastated the San Diego region in 2003, said Luque. "We thought we saw the last of fires of that magnitude but we definitely have that here." In 2003, fires destroyed 2,406 homes and killed 16 people, including a firefighter. The call for the water bomber's assistance had been anticipated and plans were in place to dispatch it, said Coulson in an interview yesterday. "It's been wild, the last couple of days, trying to get organized here," Coulson said. "I've been down with San Diego fire department four times in the last five weeks working ... on placing the Mars down there for the Santa Anas." Coulson and his staff have worked out plans with the San Diego Fire Department and Congressman Duncan Hunter's office, Coulson said. "We're ahead of the game, we've flown into a bunch of the water reservoirs down there so we have a sense of where we're going to go." A tractor-trailer used for specialized maintenance and a fuel truck left for San Diego on Monday. Crews at the Sproat Lake base worked all night Monday into yesterday to prepare the aircraft for the job, said Coulson. Since purchasing the two Martin Mars water bombers from TimberWest in April 2007, Coulson has used only one aircraft at a time and operations were downsized as a result. .... http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/story.html?id=33a140eb-b325-4630-9bd7-8473bbd16e71&k=10642 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Mars [Proofreader’s note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on October 25, 2007]

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