Command group for national airborne fire fighting system activates

by Lt. Col. Robert Carver
Air Expeditionary Group Public Affairs

6/14/2013 - BOISE, Idaho -- The national command headquarters for military air tanker aircraft assigned to fight wild land forest fires activated at the National Interagency Fire Center here June 13.

"Our first priority is protecting the lives and property of Americans threatened by wild land forest fires," said Air Force Col. Charles Davis, North Carolina Air National Guard, commander of the Air Expeditionary Group, which oversees the Modular Airborne Fire Fighting System mission. "Our team is utilized across local, state and federal agency boundaries. It's a real-time interagency mission."

MAFFS activated June 11 to assist in fighting forest fires in Southern Colorado after the U.S. Forest Service sent a request for assistance to the Department of Defense. The U.S. Air Force Reserve's 302nd Airlift Wing, based at Peterson Air Force Base, Colo., responded immediately.

MAFFS is a self-contained aerial firefighting system owned by the USFS. MAFFS modules are loaded into the cargo bays of military C-130 aircraft. Led by small USFS planes, military aircrews can discharge 3,000 gallons of water or fire retardant from the MAFFS modules along the leading edge of a forest fire in less than five seconds covering an area a quarter of a mile long by 100 feet wide. Once the load is discharged, ground crews at a MAFFS tanker base can refill the modules in less than 12 minutes.

A joint DOD and USFS program, MAFFS provides aerial firefighting resources when commercial and private air tankers are no longer able to meet the needs of the Forest Service.

Four C-130 units perform the MAFFS mission, each providing two MAFFS-capable aircraft and the air and ground crews needed to operate them. They are the 145th Airlift Wing, North Carolina Air National Guard; 146th Airlift Wing, California Air National Guard; 153rd Airlift Wing, Wyoming Air National Guard; and the 302nd in Colorado.

The AEG is staffed by Airmen from all four units. The units trade off AEG command responsibility each year. Davis, a North Carolina National Guard officer, is a command pilot who is also trained as a dual-status commander, a designation that allows him to direct National Guard, Reserve and active-duty military forces if that becomes necessary.

Since June 11, MAFFS aircraft have flown 19 missions and made 14 drops over Colorado's Black Forest fire. Airmen have dropped more than 37,500 gallons of retardant thus far.