DC-10 sets company record for hauling retardant

The operator of the three DC-10 Very Large Air Carriers, 10 Tanker Air Carrier, announced today that they set a company record yesterday, July 18, when Tanker 911 flew 10 missions in less than six hours of flight time to deliver 108,000 gallons of retardant to the Detwiler fire. That’s 10,800 gallons per sortie.

It is our understanding that they were reloading at Castle Air Force Base 25 miles west of the fire. Another one of the company’s DC-10’s, T-912, was also working the fire.

DC-10 dropping Detwiler Fire
DC-10 dropping on the Detwiler Fire on the afternoon of July 18. Screenshot from KCRA video.

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10 thoughts on “DC-10 sets company record for hauling retardant”

  1. wow. Last comment was interesting. Challenging fire tactics?

    By the way scoopers can haul lots of water too. But, gotta to be careful and not mix water(amphibious hull in contact with water) from this Lake and this other.

    Helitankers/Chinooks can do a pretty a good damage on a fire once they get there and find a close water source. No doubt.

  2. How come no one does an article on how much water large helicopters put on fires, it would make the air tankers look not too efficient. A CH-47D put over 80, 000 gallons of water on a fire in just four hours, while having to hold quite a bit of the time so SEATs and air tankers could do their drops. If the Chinook wasn’t held up by the air tankers, it would have put over 110,000 gallons of water in four hours. It was hauling about 2000 gal every 4 minutes. Now that is impressive numbers at lower costs that air tanker. Helicopters can haul retardant also.

    1. They don’t look as good on TV…a mile long line of red looks much better on the 6 0’clock news then a drop from a helicopter…

    2. I know of one Chinook that put 206,000 gals on a fire in one day. Cost per gallon was about 32 cents per gallon. Cheapest water you will find.

        1. Chinook can fly retardant and water enhancers as well as water. It can even fill out of tanker bases and MRBs. It can pretty much do it all for a lot less cost. Just saying.

        2. Dropped onto the fire to actually help the ground crews…not miles away from the fire line where it will never be seen or used except on Youtube…

  3. That fire is ripping pretty good. All smokey at my house from it. We have one crew on it.

    Any idea why it isn’t on Inciweb?

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