Yucca Valley, Calif. – Firefighters are bringing heavier airpower to bear in their battle against wildfires in the West this season, including for the first time a DC-10 jetliner capable of dropping 10 times more retardant than the usual air tanker.
A cluster of wildfires in the desert east of Los Angeles has become a laboratory of sorts for the new equipment.
“It’s a quantum leap,” Dennis Hulbert, a U.S. Forest Service regional aviation director. “We’re really trying to take advantage of the current technology.”
The DC-10, pressed into service by the state forestry department, made two sorties Sunday, swooping in just above the trees, opening its belly and disgorging 12,000 gallons of fire retardant each time.
It was the first time in the U.S. a jetliner outfitted to carry retardant was used on a real wildfire, said Capt. Jesse Estrada of the California Forestry Department.
In addition, the first person to spot one of the fires was piloting a military-style helicopter with infrared sensors that can peer through plumes of smoke.
And there is more airpower in the wings. For the first time, the U.S. Forest Service plans to send up an unmanned drone to watch for fires across the West, with test flights set for next month. And jumbo jets with payloads twice as large as the DC-10’s have been tested but not yet used against real wildfires.
