Photos of activated MAFFS aircraft

Bill Gabbert
August 7, 2015

MAFFS air tanker — Members of the 39th Aerial Port Squadron along with C-130 loadmasters assigned to the 731st Airlift Squadron push a U.S. Forest Service Modular Airborne Fire Fighting System unit onto a 302nd Airlift Wing C-130 [MAFFS 5], Aug. 2, 2015. It takes about three hours to load and then configure the MAFFS unit in a C-130 aircraft. MAFFS units were loaded onto two Air Force Reserve C-130s in response to the U.S. Forest Service MAFFS activation in support of wildland firefighting efforts in California and the Northwestern U.S. (U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Nathan Federico)

The military is always proactive in publicizing their activities when they support fighting wildfires — which is great. Taxpayers like to see how their money is spent. As expected, photos have been released of the C-130s that have been loaded with the self-contained, transportable firefighting apparatus that can be inserted into the cargo bay of the aircraft in just a few hours. The equipment, owned by the U.S. Forest Service, is called a Modular Airborne FireFighting System.

Four of the C-130s have been activated. Two from the California Air National Guard at Channel Islands, and two from the Air Force Reserve at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs.

These photo captions were written by military personnel.