Airtankers 101

December 6, 2024 Yes I was behind on updating this page. I am sorry for the length of time it has taken me to update this page. I finally have an idea of how to go about this. Thanks to all of my loyal readers for your patience.


Introduction (updated July 5, 2023)

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To get started, I must acknowledge the fine work done by Bill Gabbert. Bill Gabbert passed away in January 2023 I learned of Bill's Wildfire Today a few weeks after I started blogging on aerial wildland fire fighting. A year or so later Bill started Fire Aviation that continues excellent job with their reporting on the latest in the world of fire aviation, but in the United States and globally. I urge any of you who wants the latest to go to of Fire Aviation where he has various tags that you can use to search for specific articles that you are interested in. Before Bill passed he turned over Wildfire Today and Fire Aviation to the International Association of Wildland Fire. The International Association of Wildland Fire publishes the International Journal of Wildland Fire and Wildland Fire Magazine. A subscription is required to access the International Journal of Wildland Fire, but you can access some articles from the Wildland Fire Magazine without a subscription and I was just able to download the most recent issue.

Another source of good information on all aspects of wildland firefighting, aviation and on the ground, is Mike Archers Wildfire News of the Day that he sends out in a five-day-a-week e-mail broken down by geography. For information on subscribing, go here. I have subscribed to Mike Archer's Wildfire News of the Day for a several years now, and find myself frequently referring to old editions.

Finally, a couple of years ago I began a subscription to Aerial Fire Magazine and I get e-mail updates a couple of times a month in addition to the print magazine that comes out six times a year. I enjoy Aerial Fire Magazine, a good addition to my library. I believe, but am not certain that you can freely access some of the articles on their website with out a subscription.

Airtankers (updated July 5, 2023)

I am aware of the global use of airtankers to help the firefighters on the ground fight wildfires. For the immediate future, I am going to focus this page on resources used in the United States with the understanding that some of the companies that I refer to on this page deploy their aircraft to other countries such as the summer bushfire season in Australia. For the most part, I am focusing on large airtankers on federal contract on this page. Fire Aviation does a good job of covering the deployment of aerial resources, tankers and helicopters on State contracts within the United States and to other countries. They also covers, as appropriate the deployment of military aviation assets as well as the deployment of aerial resources from our friends in Canada. 

Contractors with large and very large airtankers as well as Scoopers that have contracts with the US Forest Fire Service in 2023. (some contractors have other types of tankers in their fleet). Revised on July 5, 2023. The last information I had is from a June 2, 2023 article on Fire Aviation with 12 tankers on exclusive use contracts, one tanker, a DC-10 tanker is activated under a call when needed (CWN) contract, and two CL-415 scoopers are activated under CWN 
  • 10 Tanker DC-10 tankers has four DC-10 tankers that carry 9,400 gallons of retardant each, go to this 10 Tanker page to download a fact sheet with more information
  • Coulson Aircrane, Coulson has a Facebook Page. Among the aircraft they fly on fires is the C-130Q, 4,000 gallons and a 737 Fireliner (I believe but am not certain it carries 4,000 gallons) You can read about the Coulson fleet here.
  • Aero Flite Inc. has RJ-85 tankers. Each tanker can carry 3,000 gallons of retardant. Aero Flite also has CL-415 scoopers that can carry 1,621 gallons of water and 90 gallons of foam
  • Aero Air, LLC. Aero Air flies the MD-87 airtanker Aero Air wholly owns Ericsson Aero Tanker. Ericsson Aero Tankers has MD-87 tankers with a capacity of 3,000 gallons of retardant.
  • Neptune Aviation has a fleet of nine BAe-146 tankers each can carry 3,000 gallons of retardant.

 


Large Tankers and Scoopers on Contract with the U.S. Forest Service in 2023 (last updated on July 5, 2023)


On June 2, 2023, Fire Aviation wrote about the 2023 large air tanker contracts. To sum up their article :

The US Forest Service has twelve air tankers on Exclusive Use Contracts with an estimated 160 days of mandatory availability ranging from a start date of March 16 to May 27 2023. Estimated ending dates of the mandatory availability period range from September 17 to November 30, 2023
Call When Needed Activations: 
  • 1 DC-10 tanker (10 Tanker), mandatory availability ends on October 3, 2023
  • 2 CL-415 scoopers from Aero Flite mandatory availability ends on September 23, 2023
SEATs (revised July 5, 2023, more revisions necessary

On April 13, 2020 Bill Gabbert wrote in Fire Aviation that there were 34 Single Engine Airtankers (SEATs) on contract with the Bureau of Land Management in 2020. I have no current information on SEAT contracts, I was relying on Fire Aviation for these updates. I will continue to keep my eyes open in hopes that I can find out some information for you.


Airtankers by Type (last revised July 5, 2023, more revisions necessary)

Classification of Fixed-Wing aircraft used in the United States in aerial wildland firefighting is based on the capacity of the retardant/water tanks. Retardant (or a water/foam mix) is dropped on the fire to suppress the fire in support of the wildland fire fighting crews fighting the fire on the ground. These links should be current as of July 5, 2023. 

Type 1 (3000 gallon minimum)
  • Lockheed P-3 Orion (3,000) - All were from Aero Union, US Forest terminated its contract with Aero Union in July 2011 go here for more info.
  • BAe-146 (approx. 3,000 gallons), Neptune Aviation 
  • C-130Q (4.000 gallons), Coulson. 
  • Ericsson Aero Tanker (wholly owned by Aero Air, Inc), MD-87 (3,000 gallons). 
  • RJ-85 (3,000 gallons). 
  • Fireliner 737, Coulson. (4.000 gallons). Coulson is the first company to convert 737s to airtanker configurations. Coulson calls these 737 tankers Fireliner 737. 
  • Douglas DC-7 (3,000 gallons). I saw various reports that three DC-7's (Erickson Aero Air) were on state contracts in California and Oregon in 2019. I do not know if the DC-7's are still on state contracts
Type 2 (1,800 to 2,999 gallons)
Type 3 (800 to 1,799 gallons)
Type 4 - SEATs (0 to 799 gallons)
Very Large Airtankers (VLAT)
  • Douglas DC-10 (approx 11,000) -- 10 Tanker Carrier retired the original DC-10 Tanker 910 in 2015. 
  • Global Supertanker Services was formed in late 2015 and was based out of Colorado Springs Airport at that time. They converted a Boeing 747-400 Freighter for aerial firefighting using technology purchased from Evergreen, carrying up to 19,600 gallons of retardant. The Boeing 747 Tanker, known as T-944 has received supplemental certification from the FAA and was later received operational certification from the FAA, see this September 16, 2016 article on Fire Aviation, I am not certain of the current status of her certification nor am I certain what her current contracts are.

Modular Airborne Firefighting System (MAFFS) {Updated on July 2020}

There are eight military C-130s can be equipped with modular airborne firefighting systems (MAFFS) and are activated to help fight wildfires in the U.S. when all civilian airtankers are in use. There are three Air Force National Guard Units (153rd AW in Cheyenne, Wyo, Nevada Air National Guard 152nd Airlift Wing, and the 146th AW based at Channel Islands, CA. The only Air Force Reserve Unit is the 302nd Airlift Wing in Colorado Springs, CO). To the best of my knowledge, each unit supplies 2 MAFFS equipped C-130s. The MAFFS units drop either water or retardant and can be loaded onto the C-130 in a couple of hours.

To learn more about MAFFS, check out these fact sheets
A couple of articles on MAFFS from my blog:
About the C-130 MAFFS (6/12/13) with three videos (loading the MAFFS onto a C-130 and 2 videos of MAFFS in action.
C-130 MAFFS working 2012 CA wildfires (10/10/12) with link to 10 minute video

Some  additional videos:



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