McCain: "Looming serious situation" with old air tankers
Arizona Senator John McCain says it shouldn’t be a surprise that Arizona is dealing with wildfires this year. And, he says he’s confident the state will have enough federal resources to deal with this year’s fire season. From Phoenix, KJZZ’s Mark Brodie reports.
MARK BRODIE: McCain says even though there are enough federal resources to put out fires, that doesn’t mean that will be before the fires put people’s lives and property in danger. And, he says there’s another problem on the horizon.
JOHN MCCAIN: We do have a looming serious situation with the tankers, the ones that dump the water and fire retardant on the fires. They’re getting so old that they need to be replaced. That won’t be a compelling issue this year, but it will be in the years ahead.
BRODIE: McCain also says the state’s forests need to be thinned. In a statement, he and Senator Jon Kyl welcomed the U.S. Forest Service picking a contractor for the Four Forest Restoration Initiative, which is a multi-year plan to restore more than 2 million acres of Ponderosa Pine forest in Northern Arizona.
