2 Military air tankers activated for California fires

Bill Gabbert
May 3, 2013

MAFFS 7, from the North Carolina Air National Guard’s 145th Airlift Wing. Department of Defense file photo.

On Friday the Governor of California activated two California National Guard C-130 aircraft from the 146th Airlift Wing to serve as air tankers in the fight against the wildfires burning in the state. Governor Edmund G. Brown responded to a request from Cal EMA and CAL FIRE to utilize the capabilities of the Modular Airborne FireFighting Systems (MAFFS) which can be loaded into the cargo hold of the C-130s enabling them to drop up to 3,000 gallons of retardant on wildfires.

The state also authorized Channel Islands Air National Guard Station (CIANGS) in Port Hueneme where the C-130s are stationed, to be used as a retardant reload base for civilian and military aircraft working the fires in Callifornia, allowing shorter turn around times for those working the Springs fire about five miles away, which grew to 28,000 acres on Friday. CAL FIRE employees are working with Air National Guard members to get the tanker base operations up and running.

The interagency agreement between the U.S. Forest Service and the Department of Defense requires that MAFFS be operational within 48 hours. However they usually have responded within 36 hours of the initial request. If that holds true this time, the California MAFFS may be available to fight fires by late in the day on Saturday, or more likely, on Sunday.

There are six other military MAFFS air tankers that have not yet been activated, stationed in Colorado, Wyoming, and North Carolina. One from North Carolina, MAFFS #7, crashed in South Dakota in 2012, killing four and injuring two.

The four MAFFS from Wyoming and North Carolina are scheduled to conduct their joint annual training and recertification next week in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The two aircraft units in Colorado held theirs a couple of weeks ago.

Californians are dealing with the effects of a very dry winter which has left the forests and brushlands with live fuel moistures that are typically only seen late in the summer. Multiple fires have broken out across the state in the last few days. Most have been kept to less than a couple of hundred acres due to aggressive initial attacks by firefighters in the air and on the ground, but at least three have burned about 3,000 acres or more.

Another airborne weapon will join the fire fight on Saturday, a DC-10 air tanker that carries 11,600 gallons of retardant.