AUGUSTA – One of the nation’s best-kept secrets is getting some air time in Maine this year.

In a brand-new program starting this month, prompted by substantial budget cuts, the Maine Forest Service has contracted with the Civil Air Patrol to conduct fire-watch patrol flights on five statewide routes.

“We’re excited about this,” said Kent Nelson, the service’s fire prevention specialist. “This is really going to help out both our agencies and hopefully reduce the amount of wildfires.”

With more than 56,000 members nationwide, the nonprofit Civil Air Patrol is the official auxiliary of the U.S. Air Force. Founded in 1941, the air patrol originally assisted the War Department by defending the nation’s coastline during World War II.

Its volunteers perform homeland security, disaster relief and counter-drug missions at the request of federal, state and local agencies, according to Civil Air Patrol Web sites.

Members also play a leading role in aerospace education and serve as mentors to the nearly 22,000 young people participating in its cadet programs.

“Certainly, the Civil Air Patrol is going to do a good job,” said Maine Forest Service chief pilot John Knight of Old Town. “We have no doubt about that.”

Nelson said Knight got the idea last year to use the resources of the air patrol after learning that other states have been using it for smoke- and air-detection flights.

Maine Wing Civil Air Patrol Lt. Mary Storey of Auburn agrees it’s a timely idea.

“It will be cost-effective and save Maine a lot of money,” Storey said. “Maine says they’re broke and we fly free. Whereas in the past, (the Forest Service) used to take a big plane up at $1,000 an hour, with us, it’s $100 an hour.”

Knight figured using Maine’s Civil Air Patrol on a call-when-needed basis as opposed to a general contract would save, on average, $57,000 a year. That’s based on the average flight time through private contracting in the past decade.

Civil Air Patrol flights will be frequent in the spring when fire danger is high, with fewer in the summer when lush grasses reduce the fire risk. Flights will increase again in the fall, as the fire danger rises.

Prior to using aircraft starting in the 1930s to find wildfires, for many years the Forest Service relied on a network of triangulating fire towers across the state.

“The beauty of the fire patrol over that system, of course, is that you can fly right over the fire and give the exact latitude and longitude and also help direct whoever’s responding – whether it be a fire department or one of our rangers – to exactly where the fire is and which road to take and where the closest water source is,” Knight said.

Savings-wise, Knight said, the last 17 towers closed by the service were costing $450,000 a year to staff and maintain.

In 1991 or 1992, three airplane fire patrol contracts for the same area cost $45,000 in the first year, he said.

An even greater savings is expected to be realized by using Civil Air Patrol planes and pilots instead of private contractors to fly five 250-mile routes instead of nine shorter routes to cover the whole state.

When Maine has any kind of high fire danger, air patrol pilots and planes will be used in tandem with state aircraft and those from other state agencies, such as state police, marine patrol, and fish and wildlife, officials said.

Maine’s Civil Air Patrol has 17 volunteer mission pilots who fly the small red, white and blue airplanes.

“We’re often called the best-kept secret,” pilot Warren King of New Auburn said, as he examined one of two Cessna 282 planes tied to the tarmac at the Auburn-Lewiston Municipal Airport.

“We’re trying to let the public know what we’re doing and why we’re doing it,” Storey said. “It’s all for them.”