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. U.S. Northern Command has activated eight C-130 transport planes equipped ...
Firefighting technology hasn’t changed much from the days when Chief of the National Guard Bureau Gen. Daniel R. Hokanson dropped buckets of water from a UH-60 Black Hawk, and his brother, a smokejumper, parachuted in to fight wildfires on foot. What has changed is the ...
High temperatures and drought across the West are sparking an almost unprecedented operations tempo for Air Force firefighting C-130s and aircrews. C-130s from three Air National Guard wings and an Air Force Reserve wing are flying missions with the Modular Airborne Firefighting System, supporting the ...
A third specially equipped Air Force C-130 joined firefighting efforts in California this week as flames burn in five large fires in northern California. The Modular Airborne Firefighting System-equipped C-130H from the Nevada Air National Guard’s 152nd Airlift Wing began operating out of the former ...
With more than 1.3 million acres already damaged in wildfires this year and 56 large fires currently raging, the Air National Guard activated a specially equipped C-130 and crew to aid firefighting efforts across the western U.S. The National Interagency Fire Center requested the Guard's ...
Air Force C-130s and Airmen wrapped up their firefighting season on Oct. 3 after helping extinguish a record number of blazes in California over more than two months. Since USAF's airborne firefighting units were activated July 22, specially equipped C-130s spent about 600 hours flying ...