U.S. testing new fire retardant, but critics push other methods

U.S. officials are testing a new wildfire retardant after two decades of buying millions of gallons annually from one supplier, but watchdogs say the expensive strategy is overly fixated on aerial attacks at the expense of hiring more fire-line digging ground crews.

The Forest Service used more than 50 million gallons of retardant for the first time in 2020 as increasingly destructive wildfires plague the West. It exceeded 50 million gallons again last year to fight some of the largest and longest-duration wildfires in history in California and other states. The fire retardant cost those two years reached nearly $200 million. Over the previous 10 years, the agency used 30 million gallons annually.

“No two wildfires are the same, and thus it's critical for fire managers to have different tools available to them for different circumstances a fire may present,” the Forest Service said in an email. “Fire retardant is simply one of those tools.”

The Forest Service said tests started last summer are continuing this summer with a magnesium-chloridebased retardant from Fortress.

Fortress contends its retardants are effective and better for the environment than products offered by Perimeter Solutions. That company says its ammoniumphosphate-based retardants are superior.

Two Forest Service watchdog groups contend both types of retardant harm the environment, and that the agency should be spending less on retardant and more on firefighters.

Andy Stahl, executive director of the Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, and Timothy Ingalsbee, executive director of Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics, and Ecology, both said that the ammonium-phosphates-based retardant is essentially a fertilizer that can boost invasive plants and is potentially responsible for some algae blooms in lakes or reservoirs when it washes downstream. They said the magnesium-chloride-based retardant is essentially a salt that will inhibit plant growth where it falls, possibly harming threatened species.

Both are concerned about direct hits to waterways with either retardant and potential harm to aquatic species. Aircraft are typically limited to giving streams a 300-foot buffer from retardant, but the Forest Service allows drops within the buffer under some conditions, and they sometimes happen accidentally.

“Their theory is that it's a war, and when you're in a war you're going to have collateral damage,” Stahl said. “It's the fire-industrial complex, the nexus between corporate and government agencies combined, with really no interest in ending making warfare on wildfires. It's ever-increasing.”