Background
The USFS had traditionally relied on contracting with private companies to provide large airtankers for fighting forest fires, the majority of which had been retired World War II and Korean War-era transports, bombers, and maritime patrol aircraft. Such aircraft were relatively inexpensive to obtain and could carry the large loads of fire retardant needed to make their use effective. In the 1980s, the bulk of the airtanker fleet consisted of C-119 Flying Boxcars which had been obtained from the military. After concerns about safety, the aging C-119s were grounded in 1987. Because the available airtanker fleet was substantially diminished, the Forest Service needed to obtain additional aircraft for firefighting operations.
Read more about this topic: U.S. Forest Service Airtanker Scandal
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I had many problems in my conduct of the office being contrasted with President Kennedy’s conduct in the office, with my manner of dealing with things and his manner, with my accent and his accent, with my background and his background. He was a great public hero, and anything I did that someone didn’t approve of, they would always feel that President Kennedy wouldn’t have done that.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“They were more than hostile. In the first place, I was a south Georgian and I was looked upon as a fiscal conservative, and the Atlanta newspapers quite erroneously, because they didn’t know anything about me or my background here in Plains, decided that I was also a racial conservative.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)