GARDEN CITY, Kan. (AP) _ As rural firefighters throughout Kansas look ahead to wildfire season, John Dowd hopes they'll include crop
dusters in their contingency plans.

Dowd is a crop duster himself and owner of Syracuse Flying Service.

He has been working for more than eight years to get fire departments to understand the role that agricultural aviation can play in dousing and suppressing out of control fires in open lands.

Now, Dowd and the Kansas Agricultural Aviation Association have formed the Wildfire Aerial Suppression Program.

Currently, the program has 34 pilots who are willing to fly in different areas of the state to aid firefighters.