Legistative Library, Parliament Sldgs., 501 Belleville St Victoria, B. C. Feb, 28 LOTTERY Charters NUMBERS lauds support Jack Charters thanks Castlegar forall the Fight hype begins Sugar Ray Leonard and Donny Lalonde The winning numbers in Saturday's mt 49 drow were 6, 20, 22, 27, 32 and 41. The bonus number was 37: ‘ ‘ The $500,000 winning number in Friday's we re 8 received Provincial lottery draw was 145138. There are | | start promoting their Sverrerne also subsidiary prizes. upcoming boxing mat- book . . . B3. vp aww. pickets Former employ at the Monte Corie! Mo: WERS tor ‘are picketing the hotel to protest non- union labor... A2 WEATHERCAST Sunday Sunny and warm todoy with highs Castles Vol. 41, No. 71 60 Cents = FIRE PILOT . . .Conair forest fire pilot Ray Hor- ton demonstrates takeoff procedures for an air tonker when a fire is called in. Horton and three ‘other pilots are always on call ond ready to fly when fires are reported. Photo by Chery! Colderbonk Fire pilots always ready for action By CHERYL CALDERBANK All is quiet at the Castlegar Tanker Base. Ray Horton and the three other tanker group pilots, placed on red alert, relax in the lounge, waiting for some action. The day has been spent playing volleyball, reading the morning newspaper and chatting with each other. Suddenly, the horn sounds and the Conair pilots are ready to help fight the war against forest ‘fires. Horton and the two other pilots dash for their aircraft, unaware of where they're off to until they climb into the cockpits and start warming the engines of their Grumman Firecats. The loaders put fire retardant into the air tankers. Pilot Hans Brunsgaard, and Bob Perchie, Ministry of Forests air attack officer, board the bird dog aircraft, ready for takeoff. The loaders given the thumbs up signal and the wheels of the aircraft are rolling within five minutes of the sound of the horn. The tankers follow immediately behind the bird dog plane to the fire. Perchie is the person with the fire knowledge His job is to determine a fire attack plan from the air. He then relays the plan to the air tanker pilots, who in turn carry out the instructions, “We are not a patrol aircraft,” bird dog. The pilots are shown the run, given the target description and elevation, and told the number of compartments of fire retardant to release. “They check our line and elevation above the fire,” says Horton. “If they don’t like the line they can redirect it.” The purpose of the tankers is to drop enough retardant to control the fire until ground crews arrive on—the scene, although occasionally the tankers will be used to put out spot fires. In Perchie’s opinion, success rates exceed 90 per cent. He explains that the fire burns up to the retardant. When heat is applied to the retardant, a non-flammable gas is given off, which retards the growth of the fire. The retardant is comprised of fertilizer, with iron oxide added for color. Guar gum, an ingredient found in ice cream, is also added to give the retardant consistency. A core inhibitor prevents corrosion on the aircraft and pumps. Generally, the ground crews are told the retar- dant is effective for four hours, although it is actually a long-term retardant. he says of the “It's very important that follow-up action is made,” Perchie adds. The air tankers are often mistakenly called water bombers. Horton explains that in Ontario, water bombers are used to fight fires and actually pick up the water from the many lakes there. However, in B.C. the Ministry of Forests has decided that it's more efficient to use a long-term retardant. The tankers are actually converted 80 Grumman trackers, which were used for submarine patrols off Canada’s east coast. These type of aircraft are still used by the military today, says Perchie. According to Horton, who has flown with Conair since 1981, the company modifies the aircraft to air tanker configurations by removing all the military equipment and anything deemed unnecessary, to lessen the weight of the tankers. Each tanker has four separate compartments for holding the retardant. When full, each tanker stores about 3,300 litres of retardant But a full drop is not always made on the fire. The air attack officer may call for a single-door, two-door, or four-door release, known as a four-door salvo. The retardant can also be spread out in a long line. That all depends on the individual fire, the density of the timber or the terrain. If a tanker has dropped all the retardant on a fire and has to reload, the pilot doesn't have to fly all the way back to Castlegar if the fire is in another vicinity. Horton explains that there are reloading bases all over the province. In the Nelson region, besides Castlegar, there are bases in Grand Forks, Revel: stoke, Golden and Cranbrook. Fighting a forest fire is similar to fighting a war, Horton admits. “To a certain extent we do attack the fire and we come away with a much better feeling when we have beaten the fire.” But sometimes the fires are the winners in the battle. Flying an air tanker is no more dangerous than other flying jobs, says Horton, who flies part-time for a charter company on the coast the rest of the year. But he does admit that there are inherent dangers because of being closer to the ground. The air tankers normally travel at 225 kilometres per hour and can be anywhere from 23 to 70 metres above the tree line when making a drop. Horton says the job of a tanker pilot involves a continued on poge A2 Continuing sunny. and 30° y ~ worm Monday. Chance of r News CASTLEGAR, BRITISH COLUMBIA, SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1988 Precipitation is zero today and Monday. Outlook is for con tinuing sun on Tuesday with scat tered clouds moving in by Wed nesday 2 Sections (A & B) Historical film hits roadblock By RON NORMAN Editor Plans for a $5.2 million feature film dealing with the history df the Douk- hobors and to be partly filmed in Castlegar have been dealt a setback, the film's producer and writer said this week. John Stark said in a telephone interview from Los Angeles that he had hoped to begin pre-production work this fall on The Dispossessed, but now won't be able to start until April, 1989 at the earliest. Stark blamed B.C. Film for the delay. He said the newly-formed pro- vineial film development agency has been sitting on his application for $10,000 in development funds for “several weeks.” Stark said Telefilm Canada, the federal government's film agency, had earmarked development funds for the project. However, because of the B.C. Film delay, those funds have been allocated, and more funds won't be available until the new fiscal year beginning April 1, 1989. “Telefilm Canada has been waiting all this time,” complained Stark. He called the B.C. Film delay “ri diculous,” adding, “Everything has ‘ ground to a halt... . We can’t sit here month after month.” Stark wrote a letter to Premier Bill Vander Zalm earlier this week sking him to intervene. “An application has been in the hands of B.C. Film for several weeks but we have not been able to get a decision from them, which is holding up production in various ways,” JOHN STARK ground toa halt Stark wrote. “Both private financing, from parties in B.C., and federal monies are being held in abeyance until a decision is reached by B.C. Film.” Stark's letter apparently worked, because B.C, Film spokesman Maria Falcone told the Castlegar News Stark's application would be dis. cussed Friday Falcone, senior projects manager, pointed out that Stark's application is not for funds for film production, but only for development. But Stark, a native of Rossland said the $10,000 is “of the utmost importance” because he has already sold his house and sunk $50,000 into the project. He began working on the seript in White Rock 10 years ago. The script is in its third draft and has been through the hands of three directors. Canadian director Ted Kotcheff left the project earlier this year after he “decided that he just didn't want to deal with the bureau- cracy of government anymore,” Stark said. Another Canadian director, Char- les Jarrott, has agreed to direct the film. Jarrott spent the summer helping Stark rewrite the script. Jarrott's credits include Nicholas and Alexandria and Poor Little Rich Girl. As well, the project itself has been sealed down from $6.1 million to $5.2 million. Stark explained that part of the cost-cutting came when he saved $500,000 by changing Jarrott for Kotcheff. The film was originally to have cost $4 million and Stark had signed Yugoslavia's Emil Kusturica to direct it. However, Kusturica abandoned the project in 1985 and returned to his home country. Stark then en listed the support of Kotcheff and different financial backing Stark said he has lined up $2 million from Hemdale, a U.S. dis. tributor, $750,000 from Astral, the Canadian rightsholder, and $200,000 from First Choice for the cable TV rights. He said foreign distributors will make up the difference, provided Telefilm Canada can put up some funding. As well, he said B.C. Film could be asked to invest as much as $500,000. By CasNews Staff A $5.2-million motion picture about the history of the Douk hobors has come under fire from the organization representing 5,000 to 7,000 Orthodox Douk hobors. The Union of Spiritual Com munities of Christ says it is con cerned the film The Dispos. sessed will exploit and sen sationalize the Doukhobor his tory. Producer/Writer John Stark hopes to begin pre-production work on the film, originally entitled The Spirit Wrestlers, next spring. Filming is to take place in Castlegar, Grand Forks, California and the Soviet Union USCC spokesman Jim Popoff told the Castlegar News in a telephone interview from Grand USCC criticizes movie period, attempting to document everything. However, he says the original story still remains — that of an Forks that the Doukhobor com munity initially welcomed the film project when it was an nounced several years ago. He said the USCC assumed the film would show the auth entice history of the Doukhobors. However, Popoff said he un derstands the revised script is a “fictional story arbitrarily tak ing place in 1931.” Popoff said the story borrows heavily from the Sons of Freedom history The Freedomites are a splinter group and have used fire as a means of “cleansing.” Popoff accused . Stark of changing the script to make it “a saleable commodit Stark has said that some immigrant group coming to Canada to face struggles and assimilation. Stark called Popoff's criticism “completely unwarranted.” “This man is making assump- tions having not even read the ‘script It's about as exploitive as Gandhi was,” referring to the Academy-award winning epic film by Richard Attenborough. But Popoff remains uncon. vinced and says he hasn't heard or seen anything that would make him change his mind Popoff added that the Douk hobor is wary of events have been fict lized to make the story more dramatic. As well, he said the original script spanned too great a time commercial films after a 1960s film called Naked Flame, which s “total exploitation.” IWA talks to continue Contract negotiations between the union representing 292 workers at Westar's Southern Wood Products mill in Castlegar broke off late last week when Westar officials had to leave the area. However, the talks between the International Woodworkers of Amer iea-Canada and Westar aro expected to resume as early as Wednesday. Wayne Nowlin, president of IWA C Local 1-405 which represents the Westar members, said negotidtions are progressing and he is hopeful a new contract for the Castlegar members will be finalized soon. “We're making progress,” he told the Castlegar News. “I hope we might have it finished in a couple of weeks.” Néwlin said the contract language “is basically in line with the industry agreement.” In negotiations last month, the IWA-Canada reached agreements with mills on the coast and in the northern and southern interior. The three-year contracts all contain wage increases of 85 cents an hour in the first year and 5.5 per cent in each of the second and third years. Nowlin said there are some slight differences in the local contract proposal “due mainly to local concerns.” He said there are some local office workers who weren't covered under the provincial agreement but added he's positive about settling their positions. “We're making good progress on those members’ positions,” he sajd. “The talks are very positive.”