{"id":419765,"date":"2026-08-29T01:34:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-29T01:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/419765\/"},"modified":"2026-08-29T01:34:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T01:34:09","slug":"super-scooper-planes-help-fight-north-texas-ross-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/419765\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Super Scooper’ planes help fight North Texas Ross Fire"},"content":{"rendered":"

Texas firefighters are getting help from above as the\u00a0Ross fires <\/a>continue to burn, with two \u2018Super Scooper\u2019 airplanes flying in from Nevada to help quell the fires.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As of Friday evening, the fire remains at 85,000 acres and is 31% contained. The Texas A&M Forest Service, which is helping coordinate the response, called in the two planes from Bridger Aerospace to help fight the fires.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The \u2018Super Scooper\u2019 airplanes are the only purpose-built aircraft specifically designed to fight fires, said Bridger Aerospace vice president Mel Holtz. They arrived in Texas Tuesday and began working on extinguishing the fire on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Sam Davis, the president of Bridger Aerospace, wrote in a statement that their pilots are \u201cworking alongside the firefighters, aviation crews, dispatchers, and other responders.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The planes can pick up more than 1,400 gallons of water from Possum Kingdom Lake in mere seconds, according to Holtz, rather than needing to land and manually reload water. The planes helped responders drop more than 60,000 gallons on the fire Thursday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s just \u201cone of the components in wildfire response\u201d \u00a0working to help quell the western edge of the blaze, Holtz said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The planes don\u2019t just drop water \u2014 they also help direct ground crews to where they are most needed. Holtz said Super Scooper pilots helped guide a fire engine into a hot spot that was flaring up Thursday, knocking out flames so the crew could get on the ground.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can just do continuous drops on this fire for the maximum effectiveness,\u201d he said, \u201cso firefighters can get in there and actually put out the fire.\u201d<\/p>\n

The two planes flew in from a different response in Nevada to help fight the blaze that has grown to the third-biggest fire in North Texas history. It\u2019s an especially important resource for firefighters navigating the hilly terrain of Palo Pinto and Jack counties,\u00a0Holtz said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI do know there is some some rugged terrain in there,\u201d Holtz said. \u201cThat\u2019s what makes the Scooper effective \u2014 \u00a0is that it can get in these areas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Holtz said the Super Scoopers will stay in North Texas as long as it takes to get the blaze under control.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the fire is still rapidly spreading and is uncontained, we\u2019re there to help out,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas firefighters are getting help from above as the\u00a0Ross fires continue to burn, with two \u2018Super Scooper\u2019 airplanes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":419766,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[732,27,29,28,89512,88030,98930,112778],"class_list":["post-419765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-article","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-tp-texas","tag-tp-weather","tag-tp-environment","tag-tp-fire"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}