I was a pilot flying a DC-10 Flamebomber to fight the Los Angeles fires. That’s what I see – and that’s what needs to stop.

• Captain RK Smithley flies a McDonnell Douglas DC-10 Flamebomber to 10Tanker, New Mexico.

• Mountainous terrain, high winds, heavy air traffic and drones complicated the mission.

The legendary article was based on a conversation with Captain RK Smithley, a pilot who flew McDonnell Douglas DC-10 wide-body airliners converted into tankers for 10Tanker, a New Mexico-based company. The DC-10 was one of dozens of aircraft helping to counter the air attack California wildfires Near Los Angeles. His text has been edited for length and clarity.

I’m a third generation ground firefighter who eventually joined aerial firefighting, so my career has come full circle.

I was a volunteer firefighter for 16 years in my hometown of southwestern Pennsylvania, starting when I was 16, before becoming a pilot. I flew for World Airlines for 10 years in the same McDonnell Douglas DC-10 and for 15 years in the MD-11, which is basically the modern version of the DC-10.

We’re the largest tanker fighting California wildfires

To fight the California fires, 10Tanker has four DC-10s and two ships (912 and 914) based at the old Norton Air Force Base in San Bernardino. I’m on ship 912. We’re putting 85,000 pounds of flame retardant on target.

It’s a very good aircraft for what we’re doing – we’re the largest tool in the Forest Service’s arsenal because we’re the largest tanker here.

January is a strange time for wildfires in California

The fire was unprecedented. In 10 years of doing this, I have never flown by fire in the US in January. Fires in January usually mean we’re in Australia, Mexico and Chile.

We are in the off-season. That’s why none of our four DC-10s are here; the other two are under maintenance. Typically, we will park the aircraft in October or November and conduct annual regular training in February and March, and then the first aircraft will be delivered as contracted in mid-to-late March.

We are part of a big team

There are different contract tankers that can put out the fire. We’re all on the same team, from small single-engine tankers carrying 70,000 gallons to large tankers carrying 9,400 gallons, and everything in between.

I cannot stress enough that this was a well planned team effort. We work as a team with the tanker base, the mechanics who keep us going, the air traffic controllers who get us out of there, the people who refuel the aircraft, and all those retardant loaders. Some of the aircraft here are what they call “initial attack eligible,” which means they can leave with air supervision, but we in the DC-10 had to be followed by a pilot aircraft to guide us to the drop.

But at the end of the day, the real heroes are the people we are helping – the firefighters on the ground. We will do everything we can to support them so they can help protect life and property.

10Tanker performs very specific tasks

It’s not as simple as flying over the fire and pressing a button so everything comes out.

Helicopters typically drop water to directly extinguish fires, but aerial tankers—or flamebombers, as I like to call them—are designed to carry retardant, which is intended to build a wall around a fire to stop or at least slow it down. So ground firefighters can get in there and take control of the situation. The retardant is red in color, so we can see it building lines on it and changing the angle.

Our day starts at 7am – basically sunrise – when the plane is prepped, primed and fueled for takeoff. How many flights we can schedule between 7am and 5:30pm will depend on the distance of the fire from the base and the length of daylight.

We flew four missions to Palisades on Friday and six missions on Saturday. The 10Tanker’s record is approximately 11 runs per day, with a reload time of 20 minutes between flights.

Los Angeles weather and geography have always been a challenge

These fires are serious not only because of the damage and high winds, but also because we are fighting them in the tight airspace between LAX, Van Nuys, Burbank and Santa Monica.

The Palisades fire is about 24,000 acres; I’ve worked on 300,000 and 400,000 acre fires, and that’s bigger than this fire. But destruction, airspace and winds of 60 to 80 mph made this a catastrophic event. Whole neighborhoods and towns burned until the winds died down and we couldn’t get in there and start working. This is a terrible situation.

We thread the needle as if walking straight down the hill. The DC-10 is very capable; we jerked and tilted it like a fighter jet. If we were a passenger, these maneuvers would be considered an emergency descent.

If drones fly, we can’t

Drones have been a big problem in California. “If drones fly, we can’t fly” is an axiom we use in aerial firefighting. Often, drones impede aerial firefighting efforts.

At one point, we moved to another area of ​​the fire to get away from them so we could continue to help save lives and property, as well as the work of the firefighters on scene to control the fire. On Saturday, a drone flew over our left wing; a Super Scooper aerial tanker from Montreal suffered a hole in its wing when a drone hit it.

Drones must be stopped because they endanger our lives and safety in fire traffic areas. This is unacceptable. Get the drones out of there so we can do our job.

Read the original article on Business Insider