Word: grounded
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...other flammable material from flames. The coating clings to vegeation and insulates it from the approaching inferno; the fertilizer helps the damaged areas regrow in the wake of the blaze. The powdery concoction is a key ingredient of a multi-pronged firefighting strategy; after the air drop, bulldozers and ground crews move in to cut a fire break designed to halt the advancing flames...
...altitude through poor visibility. Nine people died in a helicopter crash during the Buckhorn fire in northern California last year, and last month a pilot died in the crash of a single-engine tanker near Reno, Nevada. (The Station fire has so far claimed the lives of two ground-based firefighters after their fire truck fell down a hillside.) Yet, as we're again reminded this year, tanker flights are favorite action shot of television news shows - California fire officials have dubbed them "CNN drops" - and that makes them a favorite among politicians, as well. As the Times reported...
...dumps near lakes, streams and other waterways (in especially sensitive areas, tankers drop plain water instead). The Forest Service also advises against allowing pets to swallow the stuff, as with other fertilizers. Still, the retardant poses another, less-publicized hazard, Upton says: to fashion. She's been on the ground as a rain of colored fertilizer falls from the sky: "I've had plenty of pink t-shirts...
...Kandahar, the largest city in the south, into a cauldron of violence. A drive through the dusty streets is a chronicle of Afghanistan's never-ending war. Buildings across the city are scarred by shrapnel and pocked with bullet holes. Concrete roads are riddled with gaping holes in the ground where improvised explosive devices (IEDs) have been laid. And blackened divots are visible where suicide bombers - or 'human IEDs,' in colloquial parlance - blew themselves up. The streets of Kandahar, once a thriving business hub, go empty at sundown as shops selling Persian carpets and gold signet rings pull down their...
...report's figures are startling. The U.N. agency's staff, made up of expatriates and Afghans, have been monitoring the country's poppy fields on the ground and from aerial surveillance cameras and they have found that farmers this year planted far fewer poppies - an estimated drop from last year of about 79,000 acres (about 32,000 hectares), or 22% of the country's entire opium crop. Afghanistan's output usually accounts for more than 90% of the world's heroin. The price that Afghan farmers get for their opium has also crashed, dropping by a third since last...