Compass Minerals will not secure USFS contract for aerial fire retardants

Compass Minerals announced that the U.S. Forest Service has informed the company that it will not be entering into a contract for the use of magnesium chloride-based aerial fire retardants for the 2024 fire season. During scheduled winter airtanker inspections as part of the USFS’ Integrated Operational Field Evaluation, it was discovered that certain airtankers that had flown Fortress North America’s proprietary, magnesium chloride-based aerial fire retardants revealed significant signs of corrosion in areas where build-up of the retardant had occurred. The findings from this more extensive inspection raised aircraft safety concerns, prompting the USFS’ decision to inform Compass Minerals on March 22, 2024, that it would be “unable to define the scope and associated terms and conditions of a new contract” with the company until the National Transportation Safety Board and National Institute of Standards and Technology conducted a coordinated, independent assessment of the findings. As previously announced, in December 2022, Fortress became the first new company in over two decades to have long-term aerial fire retardants added to the USFS’ Qualified Product List. Fortress’ FR-100 Powder and FR-200 Liquid Concentrate products met and exceeded the USFS’ rigorous testing criteria in such categories as environmental effects and toxicity to aquatic and mammalian species, corrosion on a variety of aircraft metals, burn retardation efficacy and the completion of a live wildfire operational field evaluation. In May 2023, Fortress entered into a contract with the USFS to provide up to five mobile-deployed fire-retardant air tanker bases during the 2023 wildfire season. The company was in the process of negotiating a USFS contract for the 2024 wildfire season when the new corrosion concerns were identified. The company is currently working to achieve full qualification of proprietary, non-magnesium chloride-based aerial fire-retardant products.