The recent Los Angeles wildfires devastated California, leaving former military airtankers to step up the state’s actions in emergency response.
The C-130 Hercules airtanker, which originally belonged to the U.S. Coast Guard, is an aircraft that features a tank that carries 4,000 gallons of water or fire retardant for up to an eight hour flight, according to the Sacramento Bee.
The Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) acquired seven air tankers in total on December 14, 2023.
“The goal is to provide a kind of broad-scale suppression capacity, so that we can keep 95% of these wildfires never going over 10 acres,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom said at the press conference with Cal Fire on April 24, explaining the use of these aircrafts.
Tankers will be placed in McClellan, Sacramento, Fresno, Ramona, San Diego and Paso Robles according to Cal Fire director, Joe Tyler.
Tyler said that he felt emotional to finally have the chance to present the air tankers and thank the people behind the acquisition.
“This is a proud moment for me since Tanker 122 [the first airtanker] was placed into the service in the middle of the fire year last year,” he said. “We did not have an opportunity to have a celebration because it was more important to put it in the air to fight fire and to protect Californians.”
The airplanes are in the process of retrofitting, Tyler said. They are expected to be done by 2026.
California is now the world’s largest aerial firefighting fleet with a collection of 62 aircrafts, 18 helicopters, six fixed-wing aircraft and 16 night-monitoring FireHawk helicopters that work 24/7.
“There’s not another state in the country that can lay claim to a moment like this,” Newsom said.
Tina Curry, chief deputy director of operations at the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, said that the state leadership has been working to prevent future disasters.
“Wildfires are year-round, we were reminded of that just this last January,” Curry said. “We must match this threat with constant anticipatory stance and readiness.”
Curry said the state has employed new technologies and programs to understand natural disaster threats sooner and respond quickly in combating the upcoming wildfire season. These include the fire integrated real-time intelligence system program (FIRIS) that uses sensor-based aircrafts to check for underlying signs of disaster in remote places; prepositioning program that provides more staffings to fire agencies that are placed in high risk area; wildfire forecast and threat intelligence integration center (WFTIIC), which creates actionable information for first responders by forecast weather threats.
On the other hand, Newsom said that the state is seeking more federal support, but the current administration is not helping.
“57% of forest land in California is federal responsibility while 3% is the state,” Newsom said. “[The Trump] administration just cut 10% of the U.S. Forest budget. You can’t even make that up. That’s not risk-taking. That’s recklessness.”
Newsom said the state has invested $2.5 billion to support Cal Fire’s efforts thus far, saying that 2,200 projects have been completed or are in progress..
“We’ve never achieved that scale of investment in the past and no it’s not enough,” he said. “We can’t make up for 100 years of what wasn’t done and we’re not looking at the rearview mirror. We’re looking right out the front and we’re focused on what we can do today.”
Brian Baker, lead pilot instructor, raised the question of whether the state is “doing everything it can” to provide Californians with protection from wildfires.
“The answer to that question is emphatically yes,” he said.