Firefighting supertanker familiar to North Bay grounded as wildfire season approaches

Roaring across Lake County in the late summer of 2018, the River fire was stopped about 100 yards from Terri and Kevin Howell’s retirement home in rural Scotts Valley.

“I couldn’t believe it,” said Terri Howell, who had taken along a cat, two dogs and two pregnant goats as the couple evacuated in a hurry from the home they had purchased four years earlier.

Even though they just had it painted at considerable expense, the Howells appreciated the fresh coat of pink fire retardant adorning the house upon their return.

“We put everything we have in there,” she said.

Firefighters told them a drop from a converted Boeing 747 four-engine jetliner packing 18,000 gallons of retardant had halted the fiery tide.

Count the Howells among the many people, including one state lawmaker, dismayed by news that Cal Fire’s largest firefighting asset — a red and white 747 SuperTanker known by the number 944 on its tail — is no longer available as California braces for wildfire season after two of the driest winters in history.

“I’m thinking it’s going to be the worst fire season we’ve ever had, with low water and no tanker,” Terri Howell said.

The investor group that owns Tanker 944, which has flown more than 200 missions over California since 2017, is shutting down the aircraft, according to Fire Aviation, an industry website.

“This week the investors that own Global SuperTanker just informed me that they have made the difficult decision to cease operations of the company, effective this week,” company president Dan Reese said in an email sent to state and federal officials, the website reported.

Reese is a 25-year Cal Fire veteran who served as chief of tactical air operations. Global SuperTanker Services, LLP, the Colorado Springs-based company that owns the aircraft, did not respond to an emailed request for comment.

The 231-foot-long SuperTanker, which can race to a wildfire at 600 mph and dive low to release a deluge of pink retardant, is the only one of its kind in the world.

Its payload vastly exceeds the 1,200-gallon capacity of Cal Fire’s 23 S-2T tankers, as well as the seven C-130s, converted Coast Guard aircraft with 4,000-gallon tanks which the agency expects to deploy in 2022.

Ben Nicholls, Cal Fire’s Lake-Sonoma-Napa division chief, said the big jet’s forte is “treating a ridgetop,” slowing the advance of a wildfire and enabling bulldozers and crews on the ground to extinguish the flames.

“Nothing else like it,” Nicholls said, noting that “air tankers by themselves don’t put out fires.”

The SuperTanker joined fights against the 67,000-acre Glass fire last fall in Sonoma and Napa counties and the four-county 459,000-acre Mendocino Complex, which included the River fire, in 2018.

“The North Bay has come to love the SuperTanker,” state Sen. Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg, said. “When residents see the SuperTanker responding, it’s like the cavalry is here. It’s had a calming effect.”

McGuire said he intends to talk with Cal Fire officials about the possibility of collaborating with other Western states’ firefighting agencies to keep the big plane on the fire line, but there are some federal regulatory issues to be resolved.

Rick Bergem, a Lakeport Fire District captain at the time, was deployed with all his engines and crew as the River fire ran toward his community.

A massive air assault, including the SuperTanker, made all the difference.

“They saved the day for Lakeport,” said Bergem, now the district’s interim chief. “Stopped it from coming into town.”

Civilians, including people who’ve lost their homes to wildfires, are rallying to the SuperTanker’s defense.

“I’m worried about what’s going to happen without that resource,” said Allison Walsh, a Spokane, Washington resident who lived for 30 years in Sonoma County. “We want to save lives; we want to save homes.”