HOUSTON – I was asked this question about the Pauline Road Fire by Jackie Chassion. She asks, “Why are they not utilizing the big DC-10 aircraft retardant fire and water aircraft from California to put out these massive fires? Why are they not asking for help from their neighboring States? It seems like they’re just content with letting everything burn. I hope it’s not about politics. Can you please look into this this is a serious problem?”
Texas has previously used the DC-10 air tanker to battle major fires, but there is a lot to unravel here, so I hope my answer gets you to look at wildfires from a different perspective.
Let’s start with how the fire started:
The Pauline Road Fire originated from a prescribed burn. Now, we can certainly debate whether it was a good idea to conduct a burn under Thursday’s conditions, but that’s a separate discussion. What’s important to understand is that multiple prescribed burns have occurred in the area this year.
Why? The goal of prescribed burns is to prevent vegetation from growing unchecked, ultimately reducing the buildup of dry fuels that can lead to uncontrollable wildfires. Without proper management, excess vegetation becomes a ticking time bomb; fuel that can turn a small fire into an explosive, fast-moving disaster.
The map below shows the fire started outside the official Red Flag Warning zone. However, the conditions, strong winds, and low humidity were just as extreme as those within the warning area. This serves as an important reminder: warning zones are just lines on a map. Fire behavior doesn’t recognize these boundaries.
Moving forward, I hope that whenever a Red Flag Warning is issued for any part of Southeast Texas, the entire region takes it as a signal to avoid outdoor burns altogether. Fire doesn’t respect county lines, and neither should our caution.
The expertise of fighting a wildfire:
When a wildfire breaks out, firefighters have one primary mission: protecting lives and property. While it might seem like some areas don’t receive much attention from crews on the ground or in the air, there’s a reason for that, those areas don’t have homes or people in immediate danger.
When I worked in Los Angeles, I often saw large stretches of land that appeared untouched by firefighting efforts. But behind the scenes, crews were hard at work, building fire lines and strategically dropping fire retardant to slow the fire’s spread before it reached communities. Every wildfire response follows a carefully planned strategy, and the men and women fighting these fires are true experts—and heroes.
In the case of the Pauline Road Fire, one home was lost, and thankfully, no lives were. For those watching the news, it may look like crews are “just letting everything burn,” but that’s far from the reality. Every decision is made with safety and containment in mind, ensuring the best possible outcome in a dangerous situation.
So why not use the DC-10?
We don’t need to call in resources from California to fight most of our Texas wildfires; we have the tools and expertise right here. In the past, we’ve used the DC-10 air tanker to battle major fires, like the 4,500-acre Hidden Pines Fire in Bastrop County back in October 2015. These massive tankers can drop nearly 12,000 gallons of fire retardant at a time, covering an area three-quarters of a mile long and 500 feet wide. They can also split their load into five separate drops if needed.
But right now, those DC-10s are in California. We needed help last night and we got it: Smaller air tankers and helicopters from federal contracts were on hand, working alongside state resources to keep the fire under control. For weeks, Texas has had aircraft strategically staged to respond to the heightened wildfire risk, ensuring that when a fire broke out, they would be ready to fight it.
I looked into Jackie’s idea about using a DC-10 air tanker, and here’s why it wouldn’t have worked in this case:
The fire started around 3 p.m., Wednesday, but it likely took about an hour to realize it was growing out of control. That’s when we would have called California to request a DC-10. If one was available, it would take another hour to get a crew together and load the retardant, now we’re at 5 p.m.. The flight from California to Texas takes about three hours, meaning the plane would arrive around 8 p.m.
Here’s the problem: DC-10 tankers can only operate during daylight hours. By the time it would have arrived, it would be too dark to fly, so the plane would have had to wait until morning. But by then, the fire was already mostly under control, meaning the plane wouldn’t be needed. So it would then have to turn around and fly back to California, all while Texas taxpayers foot the bill for a plane that was never used. That’s $65,000, plus about $22,000 per flight hour. Yikes!
An important closing thought:
Historically, many people, like Jackie, have believed that every fire should be put out as quickly as possible.
In fact, when early settlers arrived in California, they practiced total fire suppression, extinguishing every fire as soon as it started. But over time, the unintended consequences became clear. Without periodic, natural burns, dry fuels accumulate, it creates the perfect condition for catastrophic wildfires. So when fires eventually broke out, they burned hotter, spread faster, and became nearly impossible to contain, destroying homes, lives, and entire ecosystems.
These extreme fires also cause more environmental damage than naturally occurring wildfires, which help clear out dead vegetation and allow forests to regenerate.
While wildfires are rare in Southeast Texas, when they do happen, firefighters focus first on protecting lives and homes. If it ever seems like they’re not actively fighting a certain area, chances are they’re making a strategic decision and allowing the fire to do what it has always done: clear out overgrowth so the land can thrive for generations to come.
