fire fighting air plane

Meet the world's largest firefighting plane.

The Boeing 747-400 Supertanker is fighting the massive wildfires in Northern California. It can drop more than 19,000 gallons of retardant at a maximum speed of 600 mph. The aircraft, which first flew for Japan Airlines in 1991, was converted into a tanker last year.

The plane can fly anywhere in the U.S. in under three hours and anywhere in the world in less than 20. It has fought fires in Israel and Chile, but its deployment in Northern California is only its second U.S. mission.