A petition put forth to bring idle “MARS” water-bombers back into service was extinguished by government.
The Ministry of Forests, Lands, and Natural Resources replied to the petition saying the old “MARS” water bombers are so inefficient it is better to just leave them docked. However the man behind the petition, Christopher Alemany feels their stance is too one-sided.
“I think they just chose to overlook the fact that the bomber has some serious advantages around payload, around the gel that it can inject into the water, and protect homes, protect fires from even lighting up homes, with the fire line that it creates,” he says.
Media Relations Officer with the Ministry, Grieg Bethel says overall performance was considered when the province moved to exclusively use the Fire Boss aircraft, saying the “MARS” bombers were too fuel inefficient and wouldn’t drop a big enough payload to justify continuing to use them.
Meanwhile, Alemany feels the province didn’t take his petition seriously.
“The Premier had a bit of a chuckle and said she’d leave it up to her experts,” he says. Although Alemany is glad his petition had enough exposure to be on people’s minds while they think about the state of wildfires in the province, “I think from now on, what will happen is that whenever fires hit, people will be asking questions.”
Premier Clark’s only official response came in the form of a Tweet – “The Martin Mars is iconic – but dated. BC now uses more effective equipment and techniques.”
Of the over 19,000 signatures gathered, Alemany says he would have liked to have seen more representation from northern BC where 600 firefighters work in the PG fire centre alone, battling five fires of note and nine smaller blazes.
Although he admits he is happy with the response from around the province, including the north.
