CENTRAL POINT, Ore. – One million gallons, that’s how much fire retardant has been delivered to fires this summer. It reached that milestone on Tuesday the second earliest date in its history. The earliest was July 22 back in 2018.
“We’re actually surpassing a lot of our norms because this air tanker is federally carded, which means it can fly on forest service fires, it can fly on BLM fires,” said Natalie Weber, OSD Southwest Division.
ODF said previously, the air tanker could only fly on fires if the agency was assisting. The base says local businesses provided enough fuel to keep the air tankers flying. ODF said the air tanker base supports all of the air tankers that fly in and out of Medford Airport.
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