Jet fuel shortage in U.S. West could ground firefighting aircraft

[TexasTowelie]

BOISE, Idaho — Airport officials facing jet fuel shortages are concerned they’ll have to wave off planes and helicopters that drop fire retardants during what could be a ferocious wildfire season, potentially endangering surrounding communities.

Sporadic shortages at some tanker bases in Oregon and Utah have already been reported. The worry is that multiple bases go dry simultaneously during what is shaping up to be a very busy wildfire season in the U.S. West. Tanker bases in Arizona, where many large fires are burning, have also had jet fuel supply issues in the last month.

“We haven’t run into that before,” said Jessica Gardetto, a National Interagency Fire Center spokeswoman in Boise, Idaho, and a former wildland firefighter. “It’s a scary thought, with all the shortages going on right now.”

Airport officials, aviation supply companies and jet fuel transport companies said jet fuel demand declined sharply and supply chains atrophied during the coronavirus pandemic. They have yet to bounce back in the Western U.S. even as the economy zooms ahead and more passengers flock to airports for long-delayed trips.

Read more: https://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/news/2021/07/13/jet-fuel-shortage-west-could-ground-firefighting-aircraft/7952237002/
(Salem Statesman Journal)

[Throck]

1. Easy solution.

Ground all the tourist planes.

[Delmette2.0]

2. You beat me to it.

How could commercial aircraft get fuel before fire fighting aircraft?

[Hortensis]

7. Local economies tend to be extremely dependent on

commercial aviation of all sorts, and of course commercial aviation itself is a critical industry all others are dependent on. So cutting into it would likely set a lot of fires all over.

Ways of shoring up the supply chain come before anything that drastic, for instance enticing truck drivers who were fired during the Covid trough to return to that work for instance. The U.S. reportedly has no actual shortage of jet fuel, and big airports are supplied by pipelines. Apparently most of the shortages are in areas where it has to be trucked in.

Of course, many in private and government positions are working on this new potential temporary disaster.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

8. Long-term contracts signed years ago. They do that to avoid spot market price fluctuations. NT

[bluecollar2]

3. Declare a national emergency and ground

15% of all commercial carrier flights. Divert the fuel towards fire fighting airbases

Increase fuel supply to the refineries distilling JP4/JP5 and avgas from the strategic reserves.

[Hortensis]

5. Apparently U.S. companies produce most of the planet's jet fuel, and

"Overall, the administration said, jet fuel inventories in the U.S. are at or above the five-year average, except in the Rocky Mountains, where they are 1% below. That appears to point to the supply chain as the potential problem, various industry officials said.

“COVID, it lulled everybody to sleep,” said Mark Haynes, vice president of sales for Ann Arbor, Mich.-based Avfuel Corp., which supplies jet fuel across the U.S., including to about half of the nation’s 44 air tanker bases operated by the U.S. Forest Service or U.S. Bureau of Land Management in western states. Some states also maintain tanker bases.

“Our business went to about zero,” Haynes said. “A lot of trucking companies had to lay off (jet fuel) drivers. What happened with the opening up of the U.S., demand for leisure travel has boomed.”

At the same time as this summer's climate crisis wildfires.

[fescuerescue]

6. IS Trump messing with our fuel supplies?

It seems that we are having continual problems with fuel delivery nowadays.

First the South East was paralyzed due to the Russian attack on that pipeline

Now airliner fuel in the West.

Feels like Trump and Putin and up to their old tricks.