>Each DC10 tanker costs about $120 million. The newer 747 tanker starts at $140 million and that's before customization. One drop from such a plane covers with

>Each DC10 tanker costs about $120 million. The newer 747 tanker starts at $140 million and that's before customization. One drop from such a plane covers with fire retardant an area 90ft wide 1-2 miles long. 100 of these would definitely be more than enough, and isn't really needed. Especially considering that those planes are pretty picky about airstrips, and Cal Fire can't (or wouldn't) use them in the first attack waves. The majority of Cal Fire air tanker fleet - about 30 planes - is something like 7 of C130 ($30M, fire retardant payload 4000gals, 1/3rd of DC10) and 20 something of S-2Ts (1200gals, 1/10th of DC10). So in total in one sortie they can cover an area 90ft wide 4 miles long which is obviously wasn't enough, even if we consider 2-3 sorties in a row (i.e. 8-12 miles), to extinguish/contain all the fires started in the thunderstorm night. Whereis scaling that fleet 5-10 times (which would mean on the scale of $2-5B if C130 are used) we'd get to cover 90ft by 20-40 miles (40-120 miles for 2-3 sorties in a row) in the first few hours - thus these megafires wouldn't have a chance to develop. >And that's assuming you could find sufficient freshwater sources to fill all of those planes. If that amount of water was available, CA wouldn't be in a megadrought and the fires wouldn't be as bad. that is just ridiculous demagogy, a high school debate club level. Lets look into the real numbers - DC10 (or 3 sorties of C130) takes about 40 tons, so 100 would take 4000 tons, which is 0.005 of 1 day of San Francisco water consumption , and in CA agricultural water consumption dwarfs the urban like 4 times. So what those planes would use is even less than that proverbial drop in a bucket.