Forest fires — the scourge of the South, devastating the forests and every year causing huge damage to the economy. To put out burning forests in Chile quickly took off the largest firefighting plane in the world, a whopping 747 SuperTanker Global – writes “Popular Mechanics”.
In Chile raging wildfires. The country’s President, Michelle Bachelet, said that “this is the worst fires in the history of Chile”, and it is difficult not to agree. Since July last year, had been burned about 3700 km2 of forest, and the last few weeks have been particularly difficult. Fortunately, currently the fires have been contained, and largely for that you should thank the Global SuperTanker 747 aircraft, arrived in Chile about two weeks ago.
Global 747 SuperTanker, the third ever built and the only one active today, uses the fuselage of the 747-400 to store approximately 20,000 gallons (approximately 75 800 liters) of water or retardant. This amount of liquid dropped from a height of 180 meters can extinguish even the most powerful forest fire.
For the first time the aircraft was deployed in Israel, where he helped to cope with forest fires in November last year, and now is actively helping Chile: less than a week the number of active fires has been reduced from 70 to 32! For most Chileans, flying giant is a real show, so local people built in a chain along the flight path of the aircraft to observe his work from close range, and sometimes even get a refreshing shower from heaven. This occurs most often where the plane drops water as a preventive measure to prevent the spread of fire.
