Fire evacuees frustrated by lack of supertanker use

Those who lost their homes or were evacuated in recent wildfires are frustrated that the world’s largest firefighting plane was never deployed.

Chuck Ambler, who lives in Wetmore, was forced out of his home during the Junkins Fire.

“All the worst goes through your head, it’s just really really scary,” Ambler explained.

Ambler and his family waited in a hotel nervously for four days, not knowing if their home had been lost.

“When it was snowing ash, we literally said goodbye to our house. We thought we were going to lose the house.”

When Ambler was able to return, he and his neighbors couldn’t help but wonder: Where is the supertanker through all this?

“We started asking — my neighbors and I — about these supertankers and why they weren’t using them, with all the technology that we have in the world today. We don’t know a lot about fires but we think it could have been put out faster.”

The Boeing 747 is the largest firefighting aircraft in the world.

Jim Wheeler, president and CEO of the global supertanker, says the plan is able to deploy at any time.

But getting the tanker in the air is expensive. It can reportedly cost up to $10’s of thousands of dollars, between having the plane on standby, pilots, and supplies.

We made calls to the U.S. Forest Service and Department of Natural Resources about the matter, and they have yet to return our calls.

For Ambler, it still doesn’t add up.

“Why do they have these supertankers in the airports if they don’t use them?” he added.