I was interested to see the CL-450 Super Scoopers being lauded by fire officials in LA in this story. Over a decade ago, I was part of a RAND team doing a cost-benefit analysis to determine the right mix of air-attack aircraft for the U.S. Forest Service...🧵 www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2025... - ThreadSky

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andrewmorral.bsky.social • 46 days ago

I was interested to see the CL-450 Super Scoopers being lauded by fire officials in LA in this story.

Over a decade ago, I was part of a RAND team doing a cost-benefit analysis to determine the right mix of air-attack aircraft for the U.S. Forest Service...🧵

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2025/01/12/la-fires-super-scoopers/

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andrewmorral.bsky.social•46 days ago

The study (linked below) used detailed modeling of different aircrafts' cycle times, payloads, function (initial vs indirect attack), effectiveness, historical availability of scoopable water, historical amenability of fires to air attack, etc.

What we concluded ....

https://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG1234.html

andrewmorral.bsky.social•46 days ago

What we concluded was basically rejected by the Forest Service and CalFIRE: The Forest Service should have vastly more Super Scoopers than large and very large planes and large helicopters.

I don't know if we were right, and I completely understand why our findings were rejected ...

andrewmorral.bsky.social•46 days ago

Our modeling rested on a) limited data on air attack effectiveness, b) some expert opinion, and c) results from other models also subject to uncertainty.

So our findings were interesting and unexpected, but hardly definitive, and no competition for the expertise of those actually fighting fires.

andrewmorral.bsky.social•46 days ago

I haven't kept up with the literature in this area, so I don't know if there is any general rethinking of the right mix of aircraft to fight wildfire in U.S. in a cost-efficient way.

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