Albuquerque-based air tanker helps fight Los Angeles wildfires
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Thousands of firefighters and volunteers have been working over the last week to tackle the Los Angeles wildfires.
Helping in that fight is Albuquerque-based 10 Tanker. Its fleet consists of four DC-10 tanker planes that can each hold and drop a massive 9,500 gallons of fire retardant.
Two of them – Tanker 912 and Tanker 914 – are helping in Los Angeles while the other two are under maintenance right now.
KOB 4 used FlightAware to track Tanker 912 and Tanker 914. While both tankers will often take more than a trip a day, 914 has taken five on some days – as long as the wind allows them. They take off from San Bernardino International Airport, do loops to drop retardant and then go back.
It might look simple on a map but a lot goes into planning each trip.
“There are limits to what we can fly in. You know, some of these winds are just too much that you just can’t fight fire from the air. So these fires are definitely unique,” said Joel Kerley, the president and CEO of 10 Tanker.
Kerley is speaking from experience. While 10 Tanker is based in Albuquerque, they get sent all over the U.S. and the world.
“We’re one of five in America, and we run the largest air tankers in the world, which are the DC-10s,” Kerley said.
Kerley says attacking from the air requires a balance with Mother Nature.
“The amount of turbulence and cross winds in the Santa Ana makes for very difficult flying. But our people are the best in the world,” Kerley said.
The Santa Ana winds are when strong wind gusts sweep down from the desert, over the mountains and across the state’s coast. It makes for the perfect conditions for a wildfire to thrive.
“Everybody knew the Santa Ana event was going to happen, and so everybody was a little bit on edge,” Kerley said.
10 Tanker is contracted by the U.S. government and gets dispatched by the U.S. Forest Service. They got the call to head out last week.
“The airplanes right now are in maintenance for the off season, so we wrapped up some items to make two of the four available, which are both in California,” Kerley continued. “Each airplane has a crew of three pilots, a captain, a first officer and a flight engineer, and then each plane also has eight mechanics.”
Kerley’s crews are joining thousands of other firefighters, pilots and volunteers from not just the U.S. but several departments from different countries.
“Helicopters, scoopers, air tankers, all kinds of stuff are responding to these fires. And everybody has their niche of what they do,” Kerley continued. “It doesn’t matter where they’re from, it doesn’t matter who they are.”
As they all work together to put and end to these fires, Kerley says he’s noticing a difference as they keep getting dispatched.
“It’s not really a fire season anymore. It’s, it’s what we call a fire year. So, something’s always on fire, something’s always burning. And so the most difficult part for us is to have the airplanes out of maintenance,” Kerley said.
Kerley says if the fires are still raging on by the time the two other planes in the fleet are done with maintenance, they’ll be sent out to California too.
KOB 4 asked Kerley if he saw an end in sight for Los Angeles. Unfortunately, he said, with the Santa Ana winds expected to pick back up this week, the fires are only going to grow.