Dr. Vadivale's valuable work continues! Thanks again, Dr. V.!
In 1997, the "Year to Earth Burned", WWF-international's JP Jeanrennauld said the World's conventional fire fighting agencies are "in crisis"; that global wildfire is beyond them. UNEP says we need a global effort to deal with World Fire, applying tools and technologies, training firefighters, and modifying jurisdictional constraints in an unprecedented effort, the equivalent of war, to stop the waste.
In the 12 short months since SE Asia's fires became uncontrollable, we have witnessed hopelessly huge fires in the largest forests in the World: Canada's, Brazil's, and Russia's. In Russia alone, forests the size of Switzerland burned up. We almost lost Peru's Macchu Picchu to wildfire. Flames licked the base of Greece's Acropolis in a 100-year fire season. For the first time in 50 years, Mexico asked the US for hands-on emergency help as flames took rainforests and 66 fire fighters lost their lives. In Florida, USA, 60,000 people evacuated their homes and businesses as difficult blazes devastated the north-central areas of the east coast.
Why is it, then, that 4 full years after the US Forest Service saw _by far_ the World's largest, fastest, longest-range, most modern and powerful fire fighting aircraft, a converted cargo jet from Russia, perform, publicly admitting its utility, the Ilyushin-76 is still stayed from development; available in limited copies; then only to Russia and Greece? (see www.emerjet.com)
When the case for a global aerial Russian fire fighting service based on this aircraft, (hundreds of which, along with talented crews, are under/unemployed) was put to NBC's International News Editor, Michael Moran, and that develoment/deployment was somehow being kept back, he wrote that it was "outrageous [that the aircraft wasn't being used].........But money is always the bottom line. That's the real underpinning of modern foreign policy."
I have another theory. Actually these ideas are not mine; they're Bertrand Russell's: Bureaucrats, Russell said, are at once powerful and lazy. By saying "NO" to worthwhile projects, they satisfy, at once, their penchant for both. And so, they become the enemies of those they are intended to serve.
Having been on this Russian fire fighter project for 4 full years, it would be my thesis, that _even if_ money was there to fight World Fire using the most strategically competent tool for the job, and _even if_ World leadership and direction were shown on this issue, bureaucrats would find ways to base their careers on its success, thereby extending the time within which the aircraft saw service.