On the afternoon of June 3, an aging Lockheed Martin P2V air tanker crashed near the border of Nevada and Utah, killing the pilot and co-pilot.

The same day, one landing gear on a P2V failed to deploy, forcing the plane to circle a landing strip in Minden, Nev., burning off excess fuel before making an emergency landing and skidding to a halt.

Both planes were more than 50 years old.

The day highlighted the dangers that come with piloting one of the U.S. Forest Service’s aging air tankers, which average more than a half-century old.

Six people died in air tanker crashes during firefighting missions this year, and at least 22 have perished in the past decade, according to a review of accident reports from the National Transportation Safety Board.

Critics say it’s no surprise the air tankers are not fit for the rigors of 21st-century firefighting. Many were designed for other missions, then scavenged from the fields of the Pentagon's massive aircraft "Boneyard" in Arizona, and retrofitted to battle wildfires across the country.

“This is the third generation of old military aircraft that have ended up causing multiple deaths,” said Jim Hall, former head of the National Transportation Safety Board. He also was co-chair of a federal commission that issued a critical report on the state of the U.S. Forest Service’s aerial firefighting capability in 2002 recommending the agency modernize its aging fleet.

But a decade later, many of those planes continue to fly -- and crash – often in some of the most difficult flying environments in aviation: remote, mountainous forests and valleys where planes can be jolted by swirling winds and turbulence and forced to fly through heavy smoke and ash.

Pilots say they have seen giant rocks and tree stumps thrown into the air – sometimes hitting planes – due to the powerful convection forces created by intense forest fires. And the weight of planes rapidly shifts as they dump thousands of pounds of water or retardant in mere seconds. The extreme conditions also can prey on the weaknesses of the tankers: Wings have fractured and separated from aircraft bodies. Engines have caught fire. Hydraulic system lines have ruptured.

Steve Kohls / AP file

A Lockeed P2V air tanker operated by Neptune Aviation makes drops fire retardant over a wooded area north of Brainerd, Minn., on April 2, 1998.

“I have serious concerns about both the size and age of the aging air tanker fleet, and fear that it isn’t up to the job of stopping wildfires that grow larger every year,” said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., chairman of the Forestry Subcommittee. “That’s what I have repeatedly told the Forest Service, as I have pushed them to address this crisis.”

Both congressional and Forest Service leaders recognize the need to update the fleet, but Congress has never allocated funding to pay for new aircraft. President Barack Obama’s 2013 budget proposes $1.97 billion for wildland fire management, down from about $2.2 billion in 2011. It includes $24 million to modernize the air tanker fleet, but that’s a fraction of the cost needed, critics say. Congressional  budget proposals, meanwhile, do not include any money for the fleet’s modernization.

Since 2007, one-third of the 79 forest firefighter deaths have occurred in aviation accidents,  more than any other cause, according to the National Wildfire Coordinating Group, a coalition of federal and state fire agencies.

“I’ve been on fires in California where people have had their houses burned underneath them twice before- - they rebuilt the third time in the same spot,” said Dick Mangan, a former program leader at the Forest Service’s Missoula Technology and Development Center with more than 30 years experience in wildland firefighting. “The only thing that doesn’t come back are dead firefighters. Grass grows back, the trees come back, houses come back. Dead firefighters don’t come back.”

And as wildfires have grown in size in the last decade – 2012 has seen more than 9 million acres burn, the third-highest amount this century – the number of available air tankers has been halved. Some have been retired from services; others have been destroyed in crashes. The Forest Service estimates its needs 18 to 28 “next-generation” large air tankers, but did not seek a congressional appropriation last summer because of budgetary constraints. 

“It is a monetary issue, absolutely,” said Ron Hanks, head of aviation safety with the Forest Service. “The cost, the engineering and the development – they’re costly.”

Industry leaders defend the safety records of the planes. They note that age itself does not disqualify a plane from meeting the Forest Service’s requirements, and properly maintained planes can continue to be airworthy even as they pass 50 years in age.

Dan Snyder, the president of Neptune Aviation Services in Missoula, Mont., said his company has begun buying and retrofitting former British passenger planes to replace the older aircraft. But Snyder, whose company has the biggest air tanker contract, defended the safety records of planes like the P2V.

“It’s an airframe that has really worked well for us,” Snyder said. “It’s taken the stress and strain quite well.”

Still, Snyder acknowledged that many airframes are fast-approaching their life limits. “They can only fly so many takeoffs and landings, which we call ‘cycles,’ and those cycle limits are starting to approach,” he said.

For old sub chasers, the mission has changed
Captain Todd Neal Tompkins understood the risks.

The Boise pilot had flown over wildfires for years, and firefighting often took him away from his family for extended periods during the wildfire season, said his friend, Brian Walp.

“He was in touch with the fact that when he left in the spring to go to work, it may be the last time he’d see his kids,” Walp said. “I think he lived with that idea.”

At 1:47 p.m. on June 3, Tompkins was in a Lockheed P2V that crashed into mountainous terrain while dropping retardant in a shallow valley north of Modena, Utah. Tompkins and co-pilot Ronnie Edwin Chambless died in the crash. The NTSB has not released its final report on the cause.

Scott G Winterton / AP file

The scene near Hamblin Valley, Utah, on June 4 after a P2V air tanker crashed as it dropped retardant on a 5,000-acre wildfire, killing pilots Todd Neal Tompkins and Ronnie Edwin Chambless, both of Boise, Idaho.

The P2V has long been the workhorse of the Forest Service’s aerial firefighting fleet. Designed to track submarines in the 1940s, the P2Vs remained in military use until the Vietnam War.

In the years after Vietnam, the tankers were given a new job: dropping fire retardant on wildfires. Retrofitted to carry retardant but with relatively few other changes, the planes – and similar planes like the Lockheed P3 Orion -- were deployed across the American West.

“Many of these aircraft – P2 and P3s, old submarine search planes – come from the Korean War and Vietnam era,” Mangan said. “They do not have the greatest track record.”

In the past decade, P2V crashes alone have resulted in at least 10 deaths. On Sept. 1, 2008, a P2V crashed and killed the pilot and two passengers after the left engine caught fire during takeoff near Reno, Nev. The following spring, a P2V crashed while attempting to navigate foggy, windy weather in Utah’s Oquirrh Mountains, killing all three people onboard.

“Clearly, those aircraft were not designed for the missions they are flying,” said Hall, the former NTSB chairman. “We recommended a purpose-built aircraft for the types of missions being flown 10 years ago. It could have easily been accomplished during that time.”

The P2V isn't the only plane that has critics worried.

In July, the U.S. Air Force grounded all firefighting-equipped C-130s on loan to the Forest Service from the Department of Defense after one of the turboprop planes crashed in South Dakota, killing four people. While many of the C-130s are significantly younger than the P2Vs, Hall said they simply were not designed to handle the dangerous conditions above wildfires.

But newer, better-designed planes are out of the Forest Service’s reach due to cost.

The Forest Service’s modernization strategy, published in February, includes contracts for next-generation civilian aircraft like the BAe-146, which cost about $7 million apiece and carry 3,000 gallons of fire suppressant  -- much less than larger, more expensive tankers. Retrofitting adds $1 million to $4 million to the price tag.

Other retrofitted planes can be even costlier: A new C-130J, for example, which can deliver 4,000 gallons of fire suppressant, costs about $80 million, according to the Forest Service report. Or the agency can lease a C-130 flown by military pilots from the Air Force for $13,740 a day, plus $6,600 for every hour it’s in the air.

All of these options would put a significant strain on the Forest Service’s budget. But inaction also carries a price too: About $55 million was spent each year from 2009-2011 to maintain the current fleet, said Jennifer Jones, a spokeswoman for the Forest Service.

Dug up from the Boneyard
After World War II, the U.S. Air Force established a storage facility near Tucson, Ariz., where dry conditions kept aircraft from corroding. Today, it is officially known as the 309th Aerospace Maintenance Regeneration Group.

But many refer to it by its more colloquial name: the Boneyard.

Since its inception, the Boneyard’s fleet has grown to include planes like the P2Vs and C-130s. Now, with more than 4,400 aircraft and 13 aerospace vehicles from all branches of the military and NASA, the Boneyard operates as a stockpile for military units and government agencies to take parts or entire planes for their own use or to sell to U.S. allies.

For years, these mothballed planes have been called into action to battle wildfires. In 2002, the federal firefighting commission took a closer look at the Boneyard, condemning the Forest Service's practice of using retired military planes salvaged from the facility.

One of those planes was a Lockheed C-130A, registration number N130HP. Built in 1957, the plane was retired from military service in 1978, spent a decade in the boneyard and then was retrofitted with retardant tanks to battle wildfires.

On June 17, 2002, as the plane swept low over a fire in California, its wings separated from the body of the plane, sending it plummeting to the ground. The accident, which was filmed by a witness, killed all three people on board. An examination of the wreckage found fatigue cracks in the right wing, a problem that had been found in other C-130s, according to the NTSB.

The dramatic footage sparked concern about the aging fleet. And in December of that year, the federal commission called its safety record “unacceptable.”

The C-130 crash is not the only example of structural failure. On July 18, 2002, a Vultee P4Y-2 air tanker’s left wing ripped off, sending the plane spiraling into a Colorado mountain and killing two crew members. Cracks in the frame of the aircraft, which was manufactured in 1945, went undetected because they were hidden behind the retardant tank, according to the NTSB report on the crash.

Hall, the chair of the federal commission, said the Forest Service is gradually phasing out these older planes, but not quickly enough, and without funding for newer planes.

“In the same period of time since this report was published, we have fought two wars,” but made virtually no progress in updating the federal firefighting fleet, he said in a recent interview.

At the same time, he said, the fleet has shrunk steadily. In 2002, the agency contracted for more than 40 air tankers.

“Right now, we have 17 aircraft, and that includes the Canadian aircraft that we have borrowed,” Hanks said.

Building for the future but relying on the past
In a hangar in Missoula, Mont., the past, present and future of the air tanker industry can be found side by side.

All nine of Neptune’s planes -- seven P2Vs, and two BAe-146 passenger jets that are being refitted to fight fires -- are under government contract., but the fleet of P2Vs has dwindled in recent years. Neptune will retire two of its P2V Neptunes this year and replace them with BAe-146s.

“The P2Vs that Neptune operates were built in the late 40s, early 50s – so they’re 60, 70-year-old aircraft,” said Ron Hooper, a former government contracting officer who now works for Neptune. “The BAe-146’s were in passenger service over in England, and they’re 15, 16-year-old aircraft.”

Neptune is one of only two remaining air-tanker contractors in the U.S. Last year, the Forest Service ended its contract with Aero Union, a California company that operated P3 Orions. The Federal Aviation Administration said the company failed to follow the scheduled inspections of its air tankers. (Aero Union CEO Britt Gourley said in a letter published in January by Wildfiretoday.com that the company’s “aircraft have always been meticulously maintained and continuously airworthy. He also stated that Aero Union had appealed the contract termination through the judicial process, but in the meantime had been forced to sell the aircraft and lay off its 60 employees.)

In June, the Forest Service announced it would contract with four U.S. companies to lease seven new air tankers, some of which could have been in the air this year. But two bidding companies that lost out protested, saying the contract requirements were vague, delaying the process. The Forest Service requested updated bids, which were due Nov. 1, from potential contractors. The agency has not announced new contracts.

Both Neptune and Minden Air Corp. -- the two current federal contractors --  have begun phasing in retired civilian airliners to replace the military planes. Neptune’s BAe-146s, built by British Aerospace in the mid- to late-1980s, are more nimble than the P2Vs, Snyder said. The planes foster a safer flying experience for pilots and flight crews, he said.

But they aren’t cheap. The BAe-146 cost $20,000 per day to have available plus $10,000 for every hour of flight, according to the USFS. But greater speed and greater suppressant capacity – about 1,000 gallons more than the older tankers – will help offset that.

“It flies twice as fast,” Hooper said. “Our maintenance cost will go down relative to the P2V.  So there are a number of advantages for the Forest Service from an operational standpoint, as well as for Neptune, from an operational maintenance standpoint to be upgrading our fleet.”

Minden is building a new BAe-146 service that should be ready in about a year, said Matt Graham, the company’s maintenance director.

In Missoula, Neptune hopes to have four BAE’s available next spring. The remaining P2Vs are scheduled to be phased out within the next five years, Hooper said.

The Murrow News Service provides local, regional and statewide stories reported and written by journalism students at the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University.

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A brush fire southeast of San Diego near the Mexican border has burned about 2,000 acres and destroyed or damaged 30 homes and at least 15 outbuildings in the area, NBC San Diego reported Monday, citing California fire officials.

The fire was sparked around noon on Sunday and was moving rapidly eastward, the officials said. Firefighters had the blaze 10 percent contained by Monday morning, but windy conditions were expected to make progress difficult. Some 80 homes remain threatened.

Evacuations are in place for several neighborhoods along the Interstate 8 near the Campo Indian Reservation in East San Diego County.

At least 600 firefighters from Cal Fire, the U.S. Forest Service, Indian reservation fire departments and agencies throughout the county were battling the fire, UT San Diego reported Monday afternoon. Cal Fire reported there were 57 engines, nine crews, six air tankers and six helicopters are at the scene, the report said.

Authorities have not confirmed any deaths or injuries from the fire.

However, people who lived along Tierra del Sol Road where most of the homes were destroyed said they were worried about an elderly neighbor who had not been accounted for, the UT report said. The man's pickup was still in front of his burned down home.

Red Cross officials turned a high school gym in the nearby community of Pine Valley into a shelter for evacuees and a casino just north of the evacuated area was being used as a command center.

Ranchers Bob and Laura Gooken considered evacuating with their 28 Clydesdale horses, but it was too late.

"When it came over here across the road, it was right there and we thought about it we can't leave so we decided to stick it out," Bob Gooken told NBC San Diego.

"We just held our breath and got very, very lucky, we're very fortunate," said his wife, Laura.

The fire’s path is in a desolate rural area where many of the buildings are vacant, according to Cal Fire spokesperson Mike Moehler.

The cause of the fire is under investigation.

Meanwhile, firefighters had contained about 40 percent of a separate fire in Riverside County, Calif., The Associated Press reported.

The 150-acre blaze had mainly been reduced to embers and hot spots by Monday morning, firefighters said, but as many as 200 homes were still in its path in rocky, brushy terrain that hadn't burned in decades.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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AP

This NOAA satellite image taken Thursday at 1:45 a.m. EDT shows dense cloud cover over areas of the Ohio Valley through the Mid-Atlantic as a storm system and associated warm front extend through the Ohio Valley.

Severe thunderstorms are possible Thursday in the central High Plains and the mid-South with damaging winds and large hail the main threats in both locations, the Weather Channel warned.

Weather.com posted a map showing the areas that could be affected that included parts of Virginia, West Virginia, North and South Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi, as well as areas of Texas, New Mexico, Colorado and Nebraska.

Meanwhile, Texas was hit by near-record high temperatures for April, with the city of Childress experiencing 106-degree heat Wednesday.

A spokeswoman for the National Weather Service told msnbc.com that was just one degree shy of the record for Texas in April of 107 degrees on April 19, 1925.

Jody James, NWS warnings coordination meteorologist based in Lubbock, Texas, said he hoped the heat was not a sign that there would be a repeat of the wildfires and drought that hit the state last year.

He said it was expected to be a little cooler Thursday with a top temperature of 96 degrees, with Friday hitting the upper 80s and then falling to the low 70s by Sunday.

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Updated at 3:25 p.m. ET: Dry and breezy conditions were fanning brush fires and wildfires up and down the East Coast -- including one on Long Island, N.Y., where firefighters on Tuesday reported progress against two blazes that had merged overnight.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo stated officials were "cautiously optimistic" that the brush fire was under control.

"We have prevented a significant disaster," added Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone.

Still, the weather conditions were making for "red flag warnings" along the East Coast, NBC weather anchor Al Roker said on TODAY. Areas from Long Island to Florida and as far west as Kentucky were under the advisory, which reflects extremely dangerous fire conditions.

In Long Island's Suffolk County, a state of emergency was declared earlier Tuesday and mandatory evacuationsordered for an undetermined number of residents in Ridge and Manorville.

Three homes and a commercial building were destroyed in Manorville, and several other properties were damaged. One firefighter suffered burns when a vehicle was overcome by the fire.

Around 1,000 acres had burned in the county, Bellone said, noting this was the county's worst fire since 1995.

"Obviously, we had a very dry winter," Bellone said, referring to what led to the current dry conditions.

The red flag warning for Long Island was posted through 8 p.m. ET.

Other fires included one on New York City's Staten Island that burned 19 acres before being contained early Tuesday.

In New Jersey's Burlington County some 25 homes were threatened by a brush fire.

In Florida, 89 wildfires affecting nearly 16,000 acres were burning, according to the Florida Forest Service. That included 18 fires of more than 100 acres each, and one of over 11,000 acres in the Osceola National Forest near the Georgia border. 

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Updated at 12:29 p.m. ET:

LOS ANGELES - A State Department official says a German man was identified as a suspect in the Los Angeles arsons because his mother was the subject of a provisional arrest request by Germany, The Associated Press reported.

Speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigations are ongoing, the official told AP on Tuesday that authorities learned about Harry Burkhart while working on his mother's case and recognized her 24-year-old son in security video of the arson suspect.

Los Angeles authorities were alerted and Burkhart was arrested Monday.

Another federal law enforcement said Burkhart was present when his mother, Dorothee, was arrested Dec. 28 by U.S. marshals and Los Angeles police. That official spoke anonymously because the official was not authorized to discuss the case.

Earlier:

LOS ANGELES - A man who was arrested in connection with a string of arson fires across the Los Angeles area reportedly told police officers, "I hate America," when they put him in handcuffs on Monday.

According to a witness the suspect, 24-year-old Harry Burkhart from Germany, uttered the words as he was pulled over and arrested early Monday, L.A. Weekly reported.

Police made the arrest after a tip from federal officials who thought they recognized the grainy figure caught on a surveillance video near where a car fire was reported.

Burkhart was booked for investigation of arson of an inhabited dwelling. Since the arrest, firefighters have not responded to any other suspicious fires.

"Our long four-day nightmare is over," said Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky.

• Story: Suspect booked in connection with LA arsons

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times reported that police searched a home on West Sunset Boulevard Monday evening. According to witnesses, the search took place in a second-floor apartment above the Le Figaro Hairstyling hair salon, the Times said.

"I cut his hair just a week and a half ago," said Shlomo Elady, a stylist at the salon who told the Times Burkhart had been customer for more than a year. "I'm in shock. He's my client. I never saw any sign of trouble."

Sam Mircovich / Reuters

Los Angeles County Reserve Deputy Sheriff Shervin Lalezary (right), who spotted the now detained man driving a van, smiles as he is introduced by Sheriff Lee Baca (left) during a news conference in Los Angeles Monday.

Police declined to reveal any motive for more than 50 fires that have occurred since Friday in Hollywood, neighboring West Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley, causing about $3 million in damage.

However, the 24-year-old, who told officers he's from Frankfurt, may have been upset about his mother's legal woes.

When asked at a news conference about reports that an immigration problem with Burhkart's mother may have been a factor, authorities declined to comment.

Galina Illarionova, who lives in the same apartment complex as the suspect, told reporters through a Russian translator that an agitated Burkhart visited her Sunday and said that his mother was having some kind of legal problems.

He told her his mother was in trouble with the authorities and wanted Illarionova to attend a legal hearing with him, but he later said he didn't need her help.

'Most dangerous arsonist'
"We are very confident in this arrest, but we have a long way to go," said Police Chief Charlie Beck, who mentioned receiving information from federal authorities who recognized Burkhart from the video. They believed he had been involved in removal hearings in immigration court, but they didn't specify how he was involved.

Burkhart, who is being held without bail, was described by Sheriff Lee Baca as the "most dangerous arsonist in Los Angeles County that I can recall."

Authorities didn't know how long he's been in the United States and said he isn't cooperating with them.

The onslaught of intentionally set fires left residents on edge over the holiday weekend in some of the most densely populated areas of the city.

Hundreds of investigators, police officers and firefighters raced to deal with the blazes. Police conducted extra patrols all weekend, and the noise of helicopters and sirens persisted virtually nonstop in Hollywood.

The blazes forced many apartment dwellers from their homes. But there were no serious injuries — one firefighter was hurt in a fall from a ladder, and another person suffered smoke inhalation.

Most of the fires began in cars, and authorities have not said how they were started.

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Update at 8:02 p.m. ET: Los Angeles officials say they'll pay at least $35,000 in rewards for information leading to the conviction of the arsonist or arsonists. County supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky says the county is offering a $25,000 reward and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is adding another $10,000.

Original post: LOS ANGELES -- Police and fire officials on Friday were scrambling to investigate a series of 19 arson fires that ripped through parked cars in Hollywood and West Hollywood overnight and spread to some nearby homes -- including one once occupied by Doors frontman Jim Morrison.

There were 13 vehicle fires within the borders of the city of Los Angeles, and another six in West Hollywood areas patrolled by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

“We’ve called in additional investigative teams,” said Los Angeles Fire Capt. Jaime Moore. “The county has brought in L.A. County Sheriff arson bomb teams, and the LAPD is on tactical alert.”

We will "be preparing for what may be coming tonight," said Los Angeles County fire Battalion Chief Tom Sullivan.

Fire officials couldn't say whether the rash of fires was the work of a copycat. There was a series of other arson fires early Thursday, also in Hollywood. Two people have been arrested and remain in custody for those blazes, officials said.

On Friday, they scoured video from the parking garages where some of the cars were located in hopes of finding an image of whoever set the fires.

Ringo H.W. Chiu / AP

An investigator works the scene where fire caused damage to a two-story apartment at 1156 N. Cahuenga Blvd. in Hollywood, section of Los Angeles on Friday.

"This is an arsonist working," said LA City Fire Deputy Chief Mario D. Rueda. "These are very dangerous fires." So far, the only injury was to a firefighter injured in a fall, but Rueda warned that "these fires can lead to loss of life and injury."

West Hollywood Mayor John Duran heatedly spoke directly to the person or persons suspected of starting the fires.

“What were you thinking?” he said. “This is the most dense part of Los Angeles. If you’re trying to say something, this is not the way to say it.”

Investigators hoped to make enough progress Friday to prevent additional arson attacks tonight and over the holiday weekend.

The four-hour onslaught started shortly after midnight and sent firefighters scrambling to douse the flames. In nearly every case, the fire started in a parked car. Dozens of people were rousted from their homes, and power was disrupted in several neighborhoods.

One of the homes was in Laurel Canyon, where Morrison and his girlfriend once lived, neighbors said. The winding road was the inspiration for the Doors' hit "Love Street," and the 1922 house was listed for nearly $1.2 million earlier this year, according to real estate website Zillow.com.

Sandy Gendel, who owns a nearby restaurant, said he heard explosions from what he later determined were likely car tires. He saw flames 30 feet high coming from the deck of the former Morrison house and a gutted Mazda Miata.

"It was just like a towering inferno," Gendel said.

Mike Meadows / AP

A Los Angeles Fire Department engine arrives at a fire in the Laurel Canyon section of Los Angeles early Friday,

Jeff Dorman, who lives in the neighborhood, said he and his wife were awakened by noise in the street.

As he and his neighbors watched the firefight, he said they worried about embers floating toward their houses because they are so close together. They also were concerned about a firebug being loose in their neighborhood.

"One spark could have been a huge problem," Dorman said. "The fire department did a fantastic job."

Los Angeles City Councilman Tom LaBonge, who represents much of the Hollywood area where blazes were set, urged residents to call 911 or a fire hotline at 213-893-9800 if they have information about the fires, or if they see someone who appears to be preparing to set new fires.

This article includes reporting from Sharon Bernstein, Samantha Tata and Ashley Gordon at NBCLosAngeles.com and The Associated Press.