The substance, vivid against the grey smoke and charred landscape, is fire retardant-much of it a product called Phos-Chek that the US Forest Service has used since the 1960s
Red flame retardant is seen on a home in the hills of Mandeville Canyon after being partially burned in the Palisades Fire.
Image: Valerie Macon / AFP©
Above the roaring fires devastating parts of Los Angeles is an incongruous sight: air tankers dropping gallons of bright red and Barbie-pink slurry over forest, homes, cars, and anything else that might lie in the blazes' path.
The substance, vivid against the grey smoke and charred landscape, is fire retardant—much of it a product called Phos-Chek that has been used by the US Forest Service since the 1960s.
"You can see it so easily ... it's amazing stuff," says Jason Colquhoun, a 53-year-old pilot with HeliQwest, a charter helicopter company specializing in putting out fires.
But over the past week it's been dropped on residential neighborhoods at an "unprecedented" scale, says Daniel McCurry, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Southern California.
That's led to one overwhelming question: how safe is it?