A new airport envisioned for open lands south of Timmerman Hill might one day become a wildland firefighting base for U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management air tankers.
Blaine County Commissioner Tom Bowman and other valley officials are prepping for that possibility. On Thursday, June 11, Bowman, Hailey City Councilwoman Martha Burke, Friedman Memorial Airport Manager Rick Baird and Friedman Memorial Airport Operations Manager Pete Kramer met with federal fire officials at the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) at the Boise airport.
Bowman said the proposed airport's proximity to federal lands in central Idaho could make it an ideal fit for strategically placed air tankers that could take off at a moment's notice to help fight wildfires in the region.
Bowman said the meeting with Timothy Murphy, deputy assistant director for the BLM at the fire center, and Neal Hitchcock, deputy director for the Forest Service at the center, highlighted a number of issues that will be explored. He said the two fire officials agreed to conduct an analysis in the next two months that will look at whether stationing large air tankers at the replacement airport would make sense.
Bowman said the analysis will look at the nationwide placement of heavy air tankers. He said local officials' real interest in the idea has to do with the potential revenue source such a scenario could present for the costly new airport.
"The end game is producing revenue so we offset airport costs," he said.
Bowman said the Federal Aviation Administration generally pays about 90 to 95 percent of the costs of new airport infrastructure. Still, the remaining cost could be quite a burden for local governments, he said.
Bowman estimated that the replacement airport could be open within six years. He said federal officials are currently mid-way through an environmental impact study that will weigh the environmental consequences of a new airport. A committee has picked a preferred location for the airport, dubbed Site 10a, located on BLM lands near state Highway 75 in southern Blaine County. Nonetheless, numerous approvals are still needed before the project can proceed.
Bowman said Murphy and Hitchcock advised them to first sit down with local BLM and Forest Service fire officials to see what their current and future firefighting needs may be. Friedman Memorial Airport already has a single-engine air tanker, or SEAT, stationed at the airfield during the summer.
"We have a Forest Service helicopter that is stationed here in the summer as well," Bowman said.
Another idea valley officials pitched to federal fire officials last week is to designate enough space at the new airport for firefighting training activities. Bowman said dormitories could be built at the airport to accommodate firefighters at the proposed multi-use-training center.
He said the proposals are all simply "speculative" for now.
Bowman said the additional uses envisioned by local officials would have to be considered by federal officials as part of the EIS process.
"We're going to have to talk to them about these other possible uses," he said.
Jason Kauffman: jkauffman@mtexpress.com
Wood River Valley firefighters have met with federal fire officials in Boise about the possibility of staging large firefighting air tankers at a proposed new airport southern Blaine County.
