There was no avoiding wildfire in California last year.

Five years of drought left acres and acres of wildlands strewn with dead vegetation at the beginning of 2017. Combined with rain that caused record amounts of more vegetation growth, particularly grass crop, created a tinderbox, and those conditions created the worst fire season in the history of California.

“Early on in the year we were having significant sized grass fires,” said Cal Fire deputy chief Scott McLean. “As we moved through the year, the higher elevations started to dry out as well due to the continuous dry weather.”

A typically hot California summer did little to improve the situation.

“In October, we dealt with winds in excess of 60 mph promoting wildland fires like blow torches,” said McLean. “The winds lasted a couple of days and then subsided. But due to the vegetation being so receptive to fire, the fires continued to burn.”

At the peak of the battle in October there were 21 major wildfires—including blazes in Napa, Sonoma, Mendocino, and Solano counties—that burned more than 245,000 acres in total. Some 11,000 firefighters were called in to contain and extinguish the infernos, which forced 100,000 people to evacuate, destroyed an estimated 8,900 structures, and killed 43 people.

By December wildfires had started up again. The Southern California fires spread due to high winds, namely the hard-blowing and dry Santa Ana winds coming down from the arid Great Basin in Nevada.

“The speeds of these winds were similar to the October siege; however, they lasted for a couple of weeks, where the winds of the October siege lasted for only a couple of days,” said McLean.

The result was several more large and fast-moving wildfires, including the Thomas Fire in Santa Barbara and Ventura County, which in less than a month became the state’s largest fire ever, destroying more than 280,000 acres.

Such enormous fires flaring up in winter as well as summer months means Cal Fire has little downtime anymore, said McLean.

“Due to fires starting year round, especially in Southern California, there is not really a fire season,” he said.

Boeing SuperTanker Proves a Workhorse in California Fires

Global SuperTanker Services’ Boeing 747-400 is finally taking a rest after a busy firefighting season.

The jumbo jet tanker sitting on the tarmac at Sacramento McClellan Airport last month dropped almost a million gallons of water or fire retardant on a host of wildfires in the fall. The airplane worked overtime from September to December—flying 51 sorties and making 71 drops—to combat one of California’s most-destructive wildfire seasons ever.

The jetliner, dubbed The Spirit of John Muir, holds approximately 19,000 gallons of liquid and dwarfs its nearest competition, the DC-10 Air Tanker. Not surprisingly, heads and television cameras turn wherever it goes.

“When you see a 747 the first thing you think of is a lumbering aircraft that doesn’t maneuver well. Nothing could be further from the truth,” said Jim Wheeler, chief executive of Global SuperTanker. “This aircraft performs beautifully.”

In fact, its four powerful General Electric CF6 engines can propel it at a top speed of nearly 520 knots—fast-enough that when stationed at McClellan Airport in October it reached fires burning to the north of the San Francisco Bay in about 15 minutes and, in December, reached fires burning around Santa Barbara County, such as the state’s record-breaking Thomas Fire, in 35 minutes.

The aircraft has a far-reaching range, and can fly approximately 4,500 miles (3,910 nm) loaded and 8,000 miles (6,952 nm) empty.

“We can be on a scene of a fire anywhere in the world in 20 hours with one fuel stop,” said Wheeler.

The SuperTanker can also reload quickly despite its massive capacity.

“Our goal is 30 minutes. Our average is between 23 and 27 minutes, and we have done it in as little as 13 minutes,” said Wheeler. From touchdown to takeoff, the airplane turns around in as little as 35 minutes to 40 minutes, depending on airport traffic, he added.

Yet, the air tanker’s heft and speed doesn’t come cheap. It costs $16,500 per flight-hour and $55,000 a day to have the airplane on stand-by, according to Cal Fire's McLean.

Cal Fire hasn’t concluded if that’s an effective use of the agency’s budget and will continue to evaluate the 747-400 through the end of this year before making a judgment, he said.

“It’s not a done deal yet,” McLean said. “But we’ve definitely given it plenty of business.”

Wheeler contends that the aircraft is a good deal for Cal Fire.

“This is the lowest cost per gallon dropped aerial firefighting aircraft in existence,” he said. “The speed, range, and tank size make it a force multiplier for any aerial firefighting situation.”

Global SuperTanker’s 747-400 is relatively new to the aerial firefighting scene, debuting as an air tanker over wildfires in Israel in November 2016. However, the concept of using a Boeing 747 in firefighting originated years ago with the now-defunct Evergreen International Aviation of McMinnville, Oregon.

Evergreen was a former aerial firefighting, cargo, and charter flight service provider founded by adventurous businessman Delford Smith. Smith was known for chartering airplanes on behalf of the Central Intelligence Agency, including the flight that evacuated the Shah of Iran to Panama in 1979. He was also known for his purchase of the Spruce Goose. Evergreen went bankrupt in 2014 shortly before Smith’s death.

It took Evergreen an initial $50 million investment to design, receive FAA approval, and install the tank system on the first SuperTanker, a converted 747-200 air freighter, said Wheeler, who was the chief executive of Evergreen from 2012 to 2013. Global SuperTanker Services of Colorado Springs, Colorado, later bought the intellectual property.

While the Boeing 747-400 is a better airplane for aerial firefighting than its predecessor the 200-variant, it still requires a closely coordinated and highly skilled team to conduct water or fire retardant drops, said Wheeler.

The aircraft flies with two pilots and a drop system operator, whose job is to set the dials and air pressure on the tanks. The SuperTanker sprays water or fire retardant using a pressurized system, as opposed to dropping it. Such a system prevents damage to cars, homes, and trees, as well as injuries to humans, said Wheeler.

Drop areas are marked for the SuperTanker by a pilot in a lead airplane flown by Cal Fire, which either points out landmarks such as large boulders or trees, or releases puffs of colored smoke. The SuperTanker can slow to about 145 kt while spraying retardant from only about 200 feet above the ground, according to the company’s website.

The jumbo jet has been observed laying down a fireline two miles long and 125 feet wide, said Wheeler. It can also make eight separate drops.

Flying a heavy water bomber close to the ground requires the ability to make a quick escape, Wheeler said.

“When you are in a situation where you are going into a valley and flying into steep terrain you want to be able to climb out,” he said. “When we drop a load we can climb out at 6,000 feet per minute. We are a virtual rocket.”

Controlling all that power requires skilled pilots. The company requires all its aviators to demonstrate that they can fly at low altitude with a full load of water and only two engines, said Wheeler.

“They have to be able to get rid of the full load and climb out of a pretty deep hole,” he said. “The aircraft does have sufficient power to do it, yet it still requires significant pilot skill to handle it.”

McClellan Airport Bustles during Fire Season

Traffic at Cal Fire’s base of operations, Sacramento McClellan Airport, doubled this fall to as many as 400 flights a day as air tankers from around the country converged to load up on fire retardant and water to drop on raging wildfires burning throughout California.

That’s according to Titus Gall, chief executive of mobile air traffic control service Tower Tech Inc., who was called in to manage the sudden influx of traffic to and from the former U.S. Air Force base. Traffic during the off season has not yet justified a full-time air traffic control tower, so aircraft—some 40 business jets call the airbase home—typically coordinate landings and takeoffs among themselves using a common traffic advisory frequency, he said.

The 1,100-acre airport, located 20 minutes from the state capital’s downtown, is one of the largest privately owned facilities in the country and boasts a 10,600-foot runway designed to handle large military aircraft, which for decades used the base for maintenance.

The Air Force closed the base in 2001, but it now is used by Cal Fire as its maintenance hub and as a fire retardant reload base. Cal Fire operates 22 S-2T air tankers, 12 UH-1H Super Hueys, 15 Rockwell OV-10A Broncos, and two Air King A200s. And when fire season smolders, it sends the aircraft back to McClellan to be stripped down and rebuilt by its maintenance company DynCorp, said Scott McLean, deputy chief of Cal Fire.

“Our S-2s and Hueys go in there when we have a ‘winter,’” he said. “Just think of the type of flying they do. It’s not just straight-and-level flying. They go through a lot of stress.”

When the base is used as a launching pad for aerial firefighting, it’s usually to support DC-10 Air Tankers or the 747-400 SuperTanker, which guzzle enormous quantities of water and fire retardant. McClellan is the country’s largest aerial retardant reload base.

During October of last year, when fast-moving fires were raging in Northern California, the base pumped more than 4.3 million gallons of retardant into air tankers, including 366,000 gallons in one day - a Cal Fire record, Gall said.

“They were taking off every seven minutes,” he said.  

Busy Fire Season for DynCorp Crews

The feet of DynCorp International’s air tanker pilots hardly touched the ground this October, the peak of California’s aerial firefighting season.

The company has been providing support to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection since 2001, but during this extended fire season it found its personnel working more hours than usual.

DynCorp’s aviators, who provide flight operations for Cal Fire’s fixed-wing air tankers, flew 700 hours in seven days as part of aerial firefighting efforts in Northern California from October 9 to October 15, according to a press release. One pilot even made 21 drops on a fire in one seven-hour period.

As an explosion of fires spread across California this fall, DynCorp’s maintenance service teams also had to work overtime. The firm provides maintenance services for Cal Fire’s fleet of more than 50 fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters from McClellan Airport outside Sacramento.

Attempting to put out multiple large, fast-moving fires at once required Cal Fire to spread out DynCorp’s maintenance staff and move them close to the front lines.

“We had to check if roads were open to allow them to get to the bases,” said Jeff Cavarra, DynCorp program director for Cal Fire, in a statement. “These mechanics went to the bases knowing they may have to sleep on the floor, as all of the local lodging was filled by evacuees.”