Colorado signs contract with GlobalSupertanker

Bomb house burning

Above: the 747 SuperTanker takes off at McClellan at dawn on March 24, 2016 after attending the Aerial Firefighting Conference. Photo By Bill Gabbert.

Today officials in Colorado announced that the state has signed a contract with Global Supertanker for the use of the company’s 747 air tanker. The agreement is a Call When Needed arrangement, which means the aircraft will only be activated on an as-needed basis.

The 747 is in Sacramento this week going through the annual recertification and “carding” process with the U.S. Forest Service. When that is complete it would again be available on a CWN contract with the state of California. If they desired, the USFS could utilize it through interagency agreements with the state. The SuperTanker was used in 2017 by CAL FIRE on several fires.

The carding process is delayed this year because the SuperTanker needs a USFS required software addition. The SuperTanker team is working with Latitude Technologies(a USFS vendor) and the USFS to get the issue resolved as quickly as possible. In addition to the CWN contracts with California and now Colorado, GlobalSupertanker also has one with the county just south of Denver, Douglas County.

Firefighters in both California and Colorado have been very busy in recent weeks fighting  huge fires. It is unknown if the 747 would be immediately activated when the software addition is complete.

Global SuperTanker’s B747-400, The Spirit of John Muir, incorporates a patented system capable of delivering single or multiple payload drops aggregating 19,200 gallons of water, fire retardant, or suppressant. With a flying speed of 600 mph, the air tanker can reach any part of the globe in 20 hours or less or nearly any part of the U.S. in less than three hours.

On February 1, 2017 during a deployment in Chile the aircraft set what could be a world record for liquid dropped in a single day by a land-based air tanker at 138,400 gallons. The video below shows it pulling into the reload pit at Santiago after its seventh and final sortie that day, making 11 drops on fires near Concepcion, Navidad, and Matanzas.

Retardant from a helicopter’s internal tank

American Elk prescribed fire, Wind Cave National Park, photo by Bill Gabbert

These days it is not uncommon on a large fire to see a helicopter dropping retardant or a Chinook with an internal tank, or… both at the same time.

This photo of a Columbia Helicopters ship supporting a very large firing operation on the Thomas Fire was in a tweet by the Los Padres National Forest.

In July we posted the KEYT video below which originally was streamed live on YouTube, showing and explaining the activities at a facility set up at the Whittier Fire northwest of Goleta, California for mixing retardant for helicopters that could draft to refill their tanks. The 11-minute video did not show any ships with buckets — just Type 1 helicopters with internal or external tanks.

The video below shows several helicopters including the same Columbia Helicopters aircraft and the 747, supporting the Thomas Fire on December 13, 2017.

Video of 747 dropping on the Thomas Fire

(Originally published at 10:50 a.m. PST December 10, 2017)

We shot this video that was on a TV screen of the 747 SuperTanker dropping on the Thomas fire in Ventura County in Southern California. It was broadcast by ABC7 today, Sunday morning December 10, but the reporter said it was shot “earlier”. Based on the flight history of the aircraft it was probably initially recorded between December 7 and 9, 2017, since its first planned flight today is scheduled to depart McClellan at 11:05 a.m. PST.

747 SuperTanker dropping
Screenshot from ABC7 video of the 747 SuperTanker dropping on the #ThomasFire in SoCal.

Video of multiple air tankers working the Liberty Fire near Murrieta, CA

Liberty Fire

Above: The Liberty Fire east of Murrieta, California, December 7, 2017. Screengrab from the KTLA video.

(Originally published at 7 p.m. PST December 7, 2017)

KTLA shot some excellent stabilized video from a helicopter Thursday of the Liberty Fire that has burned about 300 acres northeast of Murrieta, California. This is a new fire that erupted this afternoon 17 miles north of another new fire, the Lilac Fire south of Temecula which was 3,000 acres at 7 p.m. PST.

The video, which is almost 2 hours long, has at least 8 shots of air tankers dropping. We skimmed through it quickly and noted where the drops occur, probably missing a few.

13:00 – DC-10
17:00 – BAe-146/C-130
35:30 – C-130
38:35 – BAe-146
49:15 –  S-2
1:05:00 – MAFFS
1:30:00 – 747
1:40:20 – MAFFS

Firefighting aircraft on Twitter

Isaac notified us about these videos and photos. Thanks Isaac!

New record set for retardant at McClellan

With seven large fires burning within 40 to 80 miles of McClellan Air Field near Sacramento, the air tanker base there has been extremely busy this week with 12 air tankers working out of the facility at times. Along with the 1,200 to 4,000-gallon air tankers, the very large DC-10 and 747 air tankers using the base need about 12,000 to 19,000 gallons each time they park in a retardant pit.

On Wednesday October 11 a new record was set for the number of gallons loaded into air tankers in one day at the base — 311,000 gallons.

Between October 9 and 11, Tanker 944, a 747, flew 13 sorties and dropped 215,489 gallons of retardant in the 3 day period. The DC-10’s undoubtedly also played a large role in achieving the new record.