How A Firefighting Plane Refills Its Tank In Seconds

• Technology

Aircraft are one of the most important tools for fighting wildfires, and across the various agencies and private companies that use firefighting aircraft, you'll find an entire arsenal of airborne vehicles. On the small side, you'll find the agile spotter planes and tactical aircraft used to scout areas so the larger tankers can operate. Those large tankers have included jumbo jets carrying massive amounts of fire retardant, with even the legendary Boeing 747 being used at one time.

But one of the most impressive, fascinating, and capable firefighting aircraft is not the largest plane or the one with the largest tank. It's the one that can turn any nearby lake or ocean surface into an endless supply of firefighting water, which can be refilled into the plane in mere seconds. Known as the 'Super Scoopers', these prop-driven planes bring a whole new meaning to the words 'amphibious assault vehicle' and can be seen in fighting large fires across the world, including the ones that ravaged Los Angeles in 2025. When you see how they operate, you'll find that it's not just an impressive mix of ingenuity and raw aviation skills, but also that it's a remarkably analog operation in today's high-tech world.

Not your typical seaplane

To an untrained observer, a Super Scooper plane might look similar to any other seaplane – including the Grumman Ablbatross famously owned by Jimmy Buffett.  But when a Super Scooper is riding across the waves, it's not just acting as a winged boat — it's reloading. In fact, the latest De Havilland CL-415 Super Scooper is not just a seaplane modified to be a tanker, but an expensive, purpose-built firefighting weapon. 

While conventional firefighting tankers are reloaded with fire retardant from sources on the ground, the Super Scoopers, as their name suggests, simply land on a water surface and refill their tanks quickly. Very quickly. We're talking 1,600 gallons of water in as little as 12 seconds. 

The way it works is both simple and ingenious. The plane lands on a water surface, extends probes to draw water into its tank, slowing the plane and taking on the water's weight. Once the tank is full, the probes are retracted, the plane speeds up and uses its powerful turboprop engines to climb back into the sky. Compared to a normal air tanker, this is a game-changer. The Scoopers don't need to fly back to an airport, land, taxi, and then reload for each drop. Depending on how close the water source is to the fire, they can fly back and forth in just a few minutes. They also have large fuel tanks, allowing them to operate in close proximity to fires for hours on end.

Masters of the water drop

Firefighting helicopters are also used to fight fires in a similar method by scooping water from lakes and oceans, but when compared to these larger, fixed-wing planes, the choppers are both slower and carry a lot less water. But it's not just the refilling efficiency that makes the Scooper such an effective tool; it's the plane's raw performance. With massive control surfaces for its size, the Super Scoopers can navigate at low altitudes through mountainous terrain and narrow areas, which is vital for both dropping water and refilling. The planes can also drop their water from as low as 100 feet, making the drops more accurate and effective than other large tankers. 

The Super Scoopers can draw water from any source deeper than 6.5 feet and wider than 300 feet, including the ocean, lakes, and even rivers. When fire ravaged the Los Angeles area in early 2025, Super Scoopers were brought in to drop water sourced from the nearby Pacific Ocean. Of course, while the engineering of the Super Scoopers is impressive, the men and women flying them need to be equally impressive. The mission requires pulling high-G turns, dozens of precision water landings and takeoffs, navigating smoky conditions, and making low-level water drops without the aid of high-tech targeting computers. Perhaps someday there may be drones that can do the same job, but don't expect the Super Scoopers to go away anytime soon.