Aerial Firefighting: Strategies and Innovations in Action (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: Super scoopers, air tankers, and helicopters. These specially built aircraft play a vital part in the battle against wildfires. These planes help firefighters cover a wide area, dropping thousands of gallons of water at a time, while flying extremely fast through rugged terrain just a few hundred feet off the ground.

Speaker 2: For us at CAL FIRE, we own and operate the largest wildland aerial fleet in the world. We have over 60 firefighting helicopters and even more when you add the air tankers.

Speaker 1: Battling a fire from the air has huge risks. Fire pilots must deal with smoke, turbulent air, and when flying so low, power lines and trees.

Speaker 3: They can get anywhere really fast, and they can have a heavy, heavy impact. A lot of these places you can't drive a vehicle close to to get a water truck in to spray down these flames.

Speaker 1: Despite CAL FIRE having the biggest fleet, private companies like Bridger Aerospace, Ten Tanker, and Ericsson Aerotanker are contracted to bring in additional planes when needed. Some of the tankers are retrofitted commercial planes that once flew passengers and have been converted to drop retardant and water from the air.

Speaker 2: Really it is in all hands, between the City of Los Angeles, the County of Los Angeles, CAL FIRE, the U.S. Forest Service, and many other partners that own aircraft, including the military. CNBC takes a look at how airplanes are used to battle wildfires.

Speaker 1: Due to the raging Santa Ana winds and dry conditions, the Los Angeles area has been hit with one of the worst fires in U.S. history. The aerial fleet working to put those fires out included helicopters, tactical aircraft, and tankers. Each aircraft varies in size and play different roles.

Speaker 2: The overall strategy when it comes to a major wildfire like this is bringing in all types of resources. Firefighters on the ground, fire crews, bulldozers, water tenders. In addition to the aircraft, our air tankers drop retardant ahead of the fire to slow it down. The helicopters work with the firefighters on the ground to douse water onto hot spots. But then the size of the aircraft also plays a role.

Speaker 1: CAL FIRE has been using aircraft to fight wildfires since the 1950s. It's been acquiring more helicopters and tankers to make sure it has enough capacity as wildfires have become more widespread and severe.

Speaker 2: We've just finished a transition of replacing our older Vietnam-era helicopter fleet with a brand new, what we call Firehawk. It's the equivalent of a Blackhawk helicopter. But not only did we replace the fleet, we've been adding additional helicopters.

Speaker 1: The fleet's newest addition is a retrofitted military plane called the C-130 Hercules. It has the largest capacity in CAL FIRE's fleet, with a payload of over 4,000 gallons of fire retardant per drop. Despite CAL FIRE's fleet of over 60 aircraft, other companies are contracted by the U.S. Forest Service to bring in additional resources when needed. In 2023, the U.S. Forest Service extended a 10-year contract worth $7.2 billion to Tentanker and four other providers. CAL FIRE got additional aerial help from local fire departments, the U.S. Forest Service, and the California military, among others.

Speaker 4: We're contracted with the U.S. Forest Service, and so ultimately we move our base throughout the season depending on where the Forest Service wants us to move to. We could be in Oregon and we get dispatched down to Southern California.

Speaker 1: Many of these aircraft used to fly passengers and were converted to become air tankers.

Speaker 4: If you want to be in the firebomber business, there is no firebomber store you go to and buy a firebomber. So when we have their commercial airline, the MD-87, we reverse-engineered the aircraft, designed our own fire suppression system for firebombing, and then certified it as a firebomber.

Speaker 1: Erickson Aerotanker says its MD-87s can do four to five drops an hour, and that it takes roughly 45 minutes between taking off, dropping its payload, and returning. Fires are possible throughout the year in California, but typically peak from June to November.

Speaker 3: None of this, I think, was expected at all nationally. As you can see behind me, we're in heavy winter maintenance on all of our aircraft, and so it was a push to get the first aircraft out the door.

Speaker 1: Bridger Aerospace privately owned six Super Scoopers and sent two of them from its base in Montana down to L.A.

Speaker 3: The Super Scooper, also known as the Water Skimmer, Water Bomber, they're airframes that have been around since really the 1960s. They're manufactured in Canada and used in Canada, used extensively throughout Europe, typically as provincial or country-owned fleets. And so we brought six into the U.S., so now we're the largest private operator in the world and the largest in the U.S. certainly for operating the scooper.

Speaker 1: When a fire breaks out, a temporary flight restriction, or TFR, is put over the area to keep private and commercial flights from entering that airspace.

Speaker 2: We have intelligence planes that are continuously flying over the fire. We have air tactical planes that are commanding the air resources, letting them know exactly where to drop.

Speaker 1: The bigger the tanker, the larger the payload. The DC-10 can carry 9,500 gallons of retardant, more than double the C-130.

Speaker 2: Most of our air tankers actually use fire retardant, which is a chemical compound that really stops the spread of a fire. But there are some air tankers, specifically the Super Scoopers, contracted by the County of Los Angeles, that use water.

Speaker 4: The main difference between retardant and water is when you drop water, you're dropping on the fire or on the edge of the fire to cool the fire down. When you're dropping retardant, you're dropping off of the edge of the fire and you're building a fire break that we tag into. And that is designed so when the fire burns up to the retardant line, it stops burning after that.

Speaker 1: The retardant line helps give ground crews time to get in and try to put out the fire.

Speaker 2: We like to use water that's on land. We don't really like to use salt water whenever we can avoid it because that salt water can corrode metal and other materials. Luckily for us, it's not that hard to find water sources. In fact, our helicopters can easily dip into small streams or even backyard swimming pools. And so accessing water for our aerial resources is really not a big challenge.

Speaker 1: The Super Scoopers can grab 1,400 gallons of water in 12 seconds from any open body of water nearby versus landing and refilling at an airport. These planes can come with big price tags. The Super Scooper is estimated at $30 million.

Speaker 3: The Scoopers are definitely growing in popularity because of how effective they are at their mission. They're made for firefighting. They can fly four to five hours on a fuel cycle and two of them together can drop hundreds of thousands of gallons of water a day.

Speaker 1: Pilots must obtain specialized certifications to fly into fires. Schedules can vary depending on fire season and how long they are contracted for. Experience and instinct are key as some planes go over 100 miles an hour and as low as the treetops.

Speaker 3: It's not like a point-to-point commercial connection. They're flying over flames, very low altitude. It's very combat style. And then scooping water, as you can imagine, requires a whole new set of training.

Speaker 1: Fighting fires from the air does come with challenges, especially with extremely windy conditions. The Palisades fire saw up to 100-mile-per-hour wind gusts.

Speaker 2: When we have significant Santa Ana winds, hurricane-level winds, it is not only not effective to fly our aircraft, the water, the return they drop dissipates before it even hits the ground, but it's also not safe for the pilots. And so during the peak of extreme wind events, our aircraft really aren't able to be used and we have to really rely on our ground resources.

Speaker 1: The multiple wildfires in L.A. were in heavy populated areas. An unknown person flying a private drone hit and struck a Canadian super scooper on loan to L.A. No one was injured, but the plane was grounded for several days for repairs.

Speaker 3: Having one critical aircraft drop out of the firefight effort is a real problem.

Speaker 1: The 2025 fire season is off to a very early start, with multiple fires in Los Angeles and in the state of California. Around 15,000 houses and structures have been damaged or destroyed so far. Wells Fargo estimated insured losses of nearly $30 billion. Globally, wildfires are expected to grow by 30% by 2050 and 50% over the next century. New technologies may be needed to improve the way fires are fought from the air.

Speaker 2: There's been a lot of innovation into the technologies that we use within the aircraft themselves. Even though many of the aircraft may be in some cases decades old, it's so important to understand that they are so well maintained that they are practically rebuilt, down to the studs and down to the rivets. And so, in reality, they are older aircraft, but they fly and they continue to be used perfectly.

Speaker 1: De Havilland Canada is producing a brand new purpose-built super scooper, set to debut in 2028.

Speaker 2: But we're always looking for new technologies of incorporating into our operations. One example is, more recently here, our ability to fly our helicopters at night, having 24-hour availability of helicopters is relatively a new thing. And so, technology has allowed us not only the safety that's needed, but the operations to fight fire 24-7.