[PapaBear3625]

The point of the article is that the DC-10 would have much higher capacity than that plane (I'm guessing between 4 and 10 times). The downside is that it would need to land at an airport rather than a nearby lake

The DC-10 would likely have higher maintenance costs per flight hour, and higher fuel costs, but if they don't use them every day, then that cost would not be as significant as the savings from being able to kill a fire while the fire is still small

[Don W]

True, that little plane carries a smaller load, but it refills itself in 40 seconds while skimming the surface of any body of water long (a couple of miles) and wide(100feet) enough, and it only needs to land for fuel and crew changes.

That means FAR less time flying to and from the fire, landing, loading, flying back etc. I’d lay odds that given there’s a rather large body of water close by, one of those little planes could put more water on the fire in 4 hours than that great bloody DC-10 could dream of.