Cal Fire, faced with, perhaps the globe's most pressing and potentially life/property risking fire hazard environment, has, for over two decades relied upon one principal contractor to support its Aviation Program.  As long ago as 2001 Cal Fire started contracting DynCorp for the provision of support to its fire suppression aircraft, as well as providing crews, flight operations staff, and a raft of Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) services - including bespoke air attack modifications, as well as engine and rotable component servicing.  The current 5-year iteration (three year 'core' provision, plus two optional years) of that ongoing contract was signed in 2020 and was valued at some $352m.  It covered the 57 aircraft and helicopters then in the Cal Fire fleet, including S-2T, OV-10A, HC-130H and King Air aircraft, as well as UH-1 and S-70i helicopters.  The scope also included an additional C-130 aircraft then under negotiation.  With both the 'option' years taken up, the '3+2' provision is now approaching the end, and Cal Fire are in the process of assessing their options for the continued, and likely growing, support to their critical air attack mission.

There's a hackneyed phrase - 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'.  But then there's also consideration that requirements, processes and technologies change over time - and just because a provision was good five years ago, doesn't necessarily mean that sustains to the present day.  'We've always done it this way' is equally apposite - and in many respects, dangerous.  It suggests that the Status Quo works just fine, that nothing has changed, and that the next contract length (3+2?) will not see any large scale changes to the threat and, concomitantly, to the required provision.

But things have changed in the past five years.

For a start, DynCorp is no longer DynCorp.  In late 2020, not long after the current arrangement was agreed, the company was bought out by Amentum.  While it would be naive to suggest that aerial firefighting was a top level priority for DynCorp, who's business model was based upon the 'who and how' support function for aviation assets

(ie people, operations and maintenance), a cursory glance at the Amentum homepage finds no reference to firefighting - at all.  Lots about nuclear energy, DoD support and environmental protection, but an (admittedly short) scroll through their menu structure found no clear and obvious link or mention of the role it plays in supporting Cal Fire (please, if someone from Amentum reads this, I'm more than happy to be corrected!).  Amentum are clearly a huge company, with a market value of well over $5Bn, so they are unlikely to face a fiscal challenge delivering a follow on contract - and as they have provided a successful service for nearly five years under the current arrangements.  It's therefore understandable why many (often institutionally risk averse) public servants, such as commercial officers and contracts managers, would prefer to simply 'cut and paste' from the previous contact to provide a low risk, oven ready, continuation of the extant services.  A comfortable repeat of the '3+2' tweaked for any required changes in terms of costs (inflation), legislation and requirement is an attractive and 'safe' option - kicking the need to scope any real change down the road for another 4-5 years.

The incentive to 'stick', to continue with what you know, a provider has delivered, is therefore manifestly strong, and it makes a degree of common sense.

In the last five years, not only has DynCorp become Amentum, but the scale and length of the wildfire season in California have continue to grow - seemingly unabated.  The seemingly rapacious desire for more land for houses, industry and other uses continues to encroach on what has traditionally been left fallow to act as something of a wildfire 'battleground'.  Property values and user demands have often been placed before traditional land management and fire risk concerns.  In California, in the immediate environs of Los Angeles, the problem is becoming acute - as demonstrated by the Palisades, Hughes, Eaton and other wildfires that caused over $50Bn in damage at the start of this year.  Of course, the most severe toll was taken on lives and livelihoods; some 31 people are formally acknowledged as being killed directly by the fires, but studies estimate that another 400 fatalities were caused indirectly by the impact of the smoke and poor air quality on underlying heart and lung conditions, and by the access to care facilities for those already under medical care being severely disrupted by the destruction of clinical treatment centres and the time taken to restore infrastructure such as roads, bridges and power.

There's also no sign that the fire season is going to moderate in the future.  In fact, many experts believe it's quite the opposite.  There is evidence to support the theory that the California wildfire season is not just increasing in intensity but also starting the lengthen.  This has two major impacts.  First, more assets are required (with the inference that they need to be bigger and capable of delivering more payload per attack run) and second, the current 'model' of provision risks being broken. 

Why?

Outside organisations such as Cal Fire, the working life of a dedicated air attack platform (and crews/maintainers) can be somewhat 'nomadic'.  While many of the 'Call When Needed' fire fighters, mostly 'bucket haulers' with UH-60, B412 and smaller aircraft, switch to utility and other work 'off season', the big hitters (C130, CH-47, S-64) are often to be found plying their trade globally in the 'off season' in locations such as South America, Australia and, increasingly, in southern and central Europe.  In recent years there has been enough time to complete a cycle consisting of a California season, maintenance, crew rest and training, before shipping to an overseas contract for a number of months and then completing the reverse process in order to be rested, refitted and back on the line for Californian tasking again.  Risk has been taken during the 'shoulder' periods either side of peak season in the expectation that 'in country' permanent and on-call assets can cope. 

The problem is that those 'shoulders' are disappearing, globally.  Fire seasons, as a result of the twin stressors of creeping human development and climate change, are getting longer and more severe.  Therefore, the most capable assets are also the most in demand.  Programs such as RescEU in Europe are trying to deliver an uplift in firefighting aircraft, and many states are starting to invest in more air attack platforms. Portugal, for example, recently purchased a small fleet of refurbished Black Hawks to - well on paper at least - serve as firefighting platforms (there remain industry suspicions that Portugal wanted a cheap military Medium Support Helicopter (MSH), but to avoid awkward internal EU questions about not buying a more expensive newbuild Airbus or Leonardo machine, the program was presented as an 'urgent firefighting need...).  However, refurbished UH-60s aside,  the delivery timeframe of new airframes, both fixed and Rotary Wing, is simply not keeping up with the increase in demand.

This is the reason why Cal Fire should at the very least consider 'twisting' rather than 'sticking'.

The nature of the air attack business is changing; the scale, scope and technology involved has been transformed over the past twenty years.  The emergence of a new generation of Air Tankers, and the promise afforded by increasing autonomy, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the use of Unmanned platforms to both scout for and knock down fires, points to a future where, just perhaps, Cal Fire's needs could (should?) be met by an organisation that actually places aerial firefighting as important enough to warrant a mention or link on its internet landing page, but which has the air attack business as a core component of its DNA?

It's a question I posed to Britt Coulson, who has a unique position in already running a similar service - albeit in Australia for the New South Wales (NSW) Rural Fire Service (RFS).  This similarity with the Cal Fire requirement is immediately apparent.  While perhaps not directly comparable in size (at contract signature, the NSW RFS fleet was only 11 aircraft vice Cal Fire's 57) but it's certainly equivalent in terms of the sweep of its provisions.  Coulson were awarded a 10-year contract, valued at some A$400 million (circa US$ 260m) to provided management and support functions to the NSW RFS fleet of tankers and other aircraft.  This requires Coulson to operate the 737 'Fireliner' Large Air Tanker (LAT), CH-47 Chinook, and Bell 412 air attack platforms, as well as Cessna Citation and King Air support aircraft.  It also mandates that the company trains the crews (locally sourced in the main), maintains the aircraft and sponsor several apprenticeships in NSW to ensure the next generation of Air Attack crews, operational support staff and aircraft engineers are recruited and readied.  The emphasis on locally sourced manpower also helps Coulson by not drawing away their US crews at a time where, as noted earlier, the US season is stretching. 

Britt acknowledged that the NSW RFS contract has been 'a big learning curve for us'.  The current 10-year contract builds upon a previous 5-year award signed in 2019, for the same Government Owned, Contractor Operated (GOCO) model as Cal Fire.  Britt continued;

"When we first were awarded the contract in 2019 in Australia with the NSW RFS, which is the same GOCO model that CALFIRE uses, we didn’t realize how different it was from running our own fleet. As a turn key provider of pilot, maintenance, and procurement there are a lot of responsibility and KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) that need to be met and the management of all of that is important"

One must reach the logical conclusion that, given the 5-year contract was replaced by a 10-year contract, Coulson have learned quickly and are reliably hitting their KPIs.  The 2024 renewal was not a 'gimme' - a full competitive bidding process was conducted by the NSW RFS, so both Coulson's record of delivery and tender were assessed as the best option moving forward.

It's not just about delivery to contract, however.  Britt firmly believes that the real value in a fire fighting contract is having a delivery agency that is immersed in the business - one that is not potentially distracted by other sectors, or, perhaps, sees air attack as a fringe part of a much broader portfolio.  He suggests that reading the trends, understanding the direction of travel of both the threat and the industry, and being agile enough to embrace innovations when they present themselves are all key facets of the business - being a partner rather than just a contractor.  In effect 'Working with, not for...'.

 

Innovation in air attack is important, and it's happening.  Two key areas are the use of Uncrewed Aerial Systems (UAS) and Artificial Intelligence (AI).  AI directed smaller UAS are seen as a key component in detecting ignitions earlier and potentially knocking them down before they expand into something larger, and more costly to contain and suppress.  UAS can operate 24/7 provided wind and precipitation permits, while work is already underway by a number of agencies to deliver uncrewed versions of rotorcraft such as the UH-60 Black Hawk and R44 to deliver larger payloads 'around the clock'.  Co-ordinating between crewed and uncrewed assets at and around the scene of fire and refuel/reloading areas will be vital to creating the synergies that many claim are there to be exploited.  Bigger tankers, dropping their payloads on areas identified by AI-guided augmented mission systems, supplemented by UAS detecting hotspots and dropping suppressant remotely, is the future vision for the fireground.  Given climate change and the ever-expanding urban sprawl of Los Angeles, as well as the lack of space to retreat into, such a future 'air attack ecosystem' may be needed sooner rather than later.

Which brings us back to the 'stick or twist' conundrum for Cal Fire.  Stick with what you know, with what has proven a reliable delivery contractor or 'twist' to a partner that, perhaps, sees the firefight the same way you do, has firefighting as the core competency of its business and is agile enough to embrace innovations when they are available.

Not an easy choice, and one I’m glad not to be making...