John,

There was a very recent wildfire (Rockport 5 fire) close to where I live. Among the aircraft involved was one of the DC-10's. I was curious as to what that costs, Googled it, and saw in one story it is $60,000 per day (with a five day minimum) and $12,000 per hour. (Here's a link to the story. There are some excellent photos:
Rockport 5 Fire burns nearly 2,000 acres, 90 percent contained | FOX13Now.com

On the one hand it struck me as totally ridiculous, but on the other hand if it directly saves a couple of multi-million dollar homes worth it.

I did some more Internet searching and came upon this story:
Neptune passed over for $158M firefighting contract

After looking at the related documents it struck me that Neptune was not competitive in their bid, and were b*tching because they didn't win anyway...

Could you explain more about aerial firefighting and how these contracts work?