Water droplets from wildfires in California are important for fire containment and suppression

Firefighters in California are battling historic fires from the sky using a variety of efficient and specialized aircraft that drop water and fire retardant Los Angeles.

The state’s fleet includes tactical aircraft, air tankers and helicopters. They all have specific roles and capabilities, but are working together as a unit to fight the fires, which have been raging since Tuesday and took 10 lives and burned tens of thousands of hectares.

According to Cal Fire’s website, the fleet includes more than 60 aircraft and helicopters, making it the largest department-owned fleet of aerial firefighting equipment in the world. Its fleet operates from 14 airfields and 11 heliports across the state that can reach most fires in about 20 minutes.

A Super Scooper aircraft drops water on the Palisades Fire Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025, in Pacific Palisades, California. (Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

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Tactical aircraft often fly refueling aircraft, with the former providing directions and coordinates to tankers and firefighters on the ground. According to Reuters, most of Cal Fire’s tactical aircraft are North American Rockwell OV-10 twin-turbo multi-role aircraft that served in the US Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force until the 1990s.

A fleet of Cal Fire tankers then drops fire retardant onto the terrain below.

The twin turboprop Grumman S-2T tanker is the agency’s workhorse and can hold about 1,200 gallons of fire retardant. Cal Fire also operates a larger C-130 Hercules four-engine turboprop aircraft that can drop about 3,000 gallons per load.

Cal Fire owns a fleet of helicopters, including Bell UH-1H Super Hueys and Sikorsky S70i Black Hawk helicopters. Each of these helicopters can carry water in buckets that hang below the plane to put out the flames.

John Mixon, retired US Coast Guard The commander of a helicopter search and rescue plane told Fox News Digital that the buckets, known as bombie buckets, can drop water accurately.

“They can get to any lake or reservoir, and they can drop a bucket into the water and then deliver their payload precisely. So it’s a little more accurate than a fixed wing, but it’s a little less in terms of either suppressor or water,” Mixon said.

“Helicopters can carry enough water to put out a fire, of course, depending on the size of the fire. They can also saturate the ground to prevent fire from spreading. The buckets vary in size due to the capacity of the helicopter carrying them, some as little as 70 gallons, some over 2,000 gallons.”

Water is dropped from a helicopter on the Kennett Fire in the West Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles on Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (Ethan Swope/AP)

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Two Canadair CL-415 Super Scooper turboprops were also deployed to battle the deadly inferno.

The Pentagon said Friday that two C-130 Hercules military aircraft equipped with a fire suppression system are now on the scene, Military.com reported.

Six more C-130s are expected to be ready by Sunday. Some of the planes had to be retrofitted with fire suppression systems because they were used for cargo purposes. The fires occurred outside the traditional fire season.

The scoop planes refill by descending into calm waters and gliding across the surface of the water to load your tanks. They then release water to put out the fire and repeat the process until they need to refuel.

The Super Scoopers are loaded with salt water from the Pacific Ocean, though that’s rare and usually avoided because it can damage equipment, infrastructure and wildlife, Frank Papalia, a former lieutenant with the New York City Fire Department and a fire safety expert at Global Security Group, said Fox News Digital.

Fresh water is preferred whenever possible because the salt content is corrosive and can damage equipment such as hoses and pumps.

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Planes draw water from the ocean to fight the Palisades Fire in the mountains, January 9, 2025. (Sandy Hooper/Imagn)

“In this case, your city is on fire, so using salt water isn’t such a bad thing,” he told Fox News Digital.

Also, fire hydrants do not use salt water because they are not corrosion resistant, but fire engines can use salt water. They just have to be close enough to get it and require a thorough cleaning afterwards.

The fire retardant composition is not directly discharged fires. Instead, the chemical is dropped in front of the fire, directing its course or slowing its progress and giving ground crews a chance to control or extinguish it. Retardants can also be released to protect homes or important facilities and to keep driveways open.

A substance usually consists of a mixture water, fertilizer, thickener and red dye. Red dye is added so firefighters can see the retardant against the landscape.

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The pilots who fly these aircraft are known as aerial firefighting pilots or water bombers.

Mixon says the pilots come from all walks of life, but many have served in the military before.

As a general rule, they must undergo special training on the respective types of aircraft to deal with their unique capabilities and systems. Most firefighting pilots already have years of flying experience before taking to the skies in a firefighting aircraft.

According to Hillsboro Aero Academy, a flight school in Oregon, becoming a helicopter pilot requires 1,500 to 4,000 hours of helicopter flight time as a pilot in command (PIC), the pilot responsible for the safety and operation of the aircraft.

Flight hours provide novice pilots with vital knowledge of aircraft systems, mission training and fire behaviour, and candidates must prove they can operate firefighting helicopters in challenging environments such as mountainous terrain. They also need technical skills to work closely with ground crews and other aircraft during missions, as well as knowledge of how fires spread and how to contain them with aircraft.

A tanker dumps retardant as the Palisades Fire grows in the hills of Tapanga, California, on January 9, 2025. (David Swenson/AFP via Getty Images)

Same hours for future airplane pilots.

“All crews are extremely well trained specifically for a specialized mission,” Mixon said. “This is not a secondary mission for the people at Cal Fire or for anyone from the Department of Defense or the Forest Service. Just like the US Coast Guard, they are very, very specialized in what they do.

“It’s very dangerous, very difficult, but they’re also very, very well trained, specifically for a specific task.”

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One of the most obvious dangers is low altitude over hilly terrain in high winds, which is what they’re struggling with right now, Mixon said.

Mixon noted that through the smoke, those crews must also avoid other aircraft, terrain and everyday hazards such as radio towers.

Strong Santa Ana winds prevented firefighting aircraft from being deployed earlier this week due to safety concerns.

Meanwhile, the drone crashed into one of the Canadian Super Scooperstoo. The impact created a fist-sized hole in the water, and the plane’s wing fell. No casualties have been reported. Cal Fire said it expects the plane to be back in the air by Monday.

Reuters contributed to this report.