All eight of the Air Force’s premier firefighting aircraft will fly from across the western U.S. to southern California this weekend to help fight the wildfires that have been scorching Los Angeles since Jan. 7.
On Jan. 9, U.S. Northern Command activated eight C-130 transport planes equipped with the Modular Aerial Fire Fighting System (MAFFS) to fly to the Channel Island Air National Guard Station, Calif., according to a press release.
In addition to the C-130s, the National Guard said Jan. 10 more than 880 Army and Air Guard members had mobilized, including helicopter crews, military police, and hand crews to work alongside local police and firefighters. Some 500 Active-duty Marines are also staging at Camp Pendleton, Calif. to help clear roads, hand out supplies, and search and rescue, said deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh in a briefing. About 10 Navy helicopters will fly in with water buckets to help suppress the fires.
Channel Islands Air National Guard Station, located west of the record-breaking Palisades Fire, hosts the California Air National Guard’s 146th Airlift Wing, one of the activated C-130 MAFFS units.
The other units include the Wyoming Air National Guard’s 153rd Airlift Wing, the Nevada Air National Guard’s 152nd Airlift Wing, and the 302nd Airlift Wing, an Air Force Reserve unit based in Colorado. Together, the four units represent all of the Air Force’s MAFFS-equipped wings.
“U.S. Northern Command immediately took action as we watched and learned more about the fires in the Los Angeles area,” Gen. Gregory Guillot, head of NORTHCOM, said in the release. “Providing support to civil authorities is a valued part of our homeland defense mission.”
MAFFS is an 11,000-pound metal tank that can drop 28,000 pounds of fire retardant in less than five seconds and be refilled on the ground in less than 12 minutes. The retardant helps keep wildfires from spreading so that ground crews can contain it, but the C-130s have to fly low and slow, often over mountainous terrain through smoke and over raging fires, to do it right.
“We’re going down to 150 feet and doing it far slower than we would normally do an airdrop because of the way the retardant comes out of the airplane,” a Nevada MAFFS pilot and former Navy F/A-18 pilot told Air & Space Forces Magazine in 2021.
“So, it’s lower, you’re heavier at max gross weight, you’re using far more power,” he added. “It’s hot, you’re at high altitude up in the mountains, canyons, obstacles, trees. Next to flying around the aircraft carrier at night, this is probably some of the most high-risk flying I’ve ever done.”
Civilian contractors perform the bulk of aerial firefighting, but MAFFS serves as a surge force for particularly busy fire seasons such as during the 2021 Dixie Fire in northern California. Congress created MAFFS in the early 1970s after the Laguna Fire, which destroyed more than 1,000 buildings and killed at least five people in San Diego County.
MAFFS air support is much needed for the Los Angeles fires, where 80 mile-per-hour winds have hindered aerial firefighting efforts. The wind is expected to slow down the night of Jan. 10, but other challenges remain: on Jan. 9, a civilian drone hit a CL-415 firefighting aircraft over the Palisades fire area, despite temporary flight restrictions made to protect firefighting aircraft, according to the Los Angeles County Fire Department.
No one was injured, but the plane’s wing was damaged and the aircraft was taken out of service during what may be the costliest wildfire in U.S. history. So far at least 10 people have been killed and more than 10,000 structures destroyed.
“The LACoFD would like to remind everyone that flying a drone in the midst of firefighting efforts is a federal crime and punishable by up to 12 months in prison or a fine of up to $75,000,” the department wrote on social media.