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NEWS | Oct. 23, 2007

North Carolina Air National Guard Activated to Help Fight California Forest Fires

By MAJ Matt Handley North Carolina National Guard Office of Public Affairs

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - The North Carolina Air National Guard will deploy four C-130 cargo aircraft, flight crews and support personnel to Port Hueneme/Channel Islands, California, to assist the U.S. Forest Service in firefighting efforts to contain, control, and extinguish wild fires.

The aircraft are a part of the 145th Airlift Wing (AW) NC Air National Guard based at Charlotte-Douglas International Airport, Charlotte NC. Their departure is scheduled for later this morning. Members of the media wishing to cover activities surrounding this activation may do so by arriving at the Minuteman Road, 4930 Minuteman Way gate off Morris Field Drive at 11:00am and are encouraged to RSVP to the NCNG Public Affairs Duty Phone 919-612-5061 for access to the base. All activities will occur at the NC ANG base.

Aircraft will be staged at Port Hueneme/Channel Islands, California with approximately 50 North Carolina Air National Guard Airmen deploying to operate the Modular Airborne Fire Fighting System, or MAFFS. Since 1974, MAFFS has saved land, lives and property from wild land fires in the United States and abroad. MAFFS is only activated when all other air tanker resources are committed.

The MAFFS mission equips C-130s with a fire fighting apparatus that is loaded into the aircraft's cargo area. The MAFFS unit itself is a series of pressurized tanks that hold 3,000 gallons of flame-retardant liquid called Phos-Chek. Directed by ground crews and led to the fire site by a U.S. Forest service lead plane, MAFFS aircraft drop retardant along the leading edge of a fire to block the spread of flames.

The North Carolina contingent will operate two C-130s equipped with MAFFS modules. The third and fourth aircraft will transport other equipment, and personnel.

All four Air Force MAFFS units are in the reserve components, three in the National Guard and one in the Air Force Reserve. In addition to North Carolina's unit, there is the California Air National Guard's 146th AW from Channel Islands, CA, the Wyoming Air National Guard's 153rd AW from Cheyenne, WY and the Air Force Reserve's 302nd AW from Colorado Springs, CO.

The length of this mission is undetermined and will depend on the demands of the fire fighting efforts.

The North Carolina Air National Guard is one of six major military commands in the North Carolina National Guard, which falls under the North Carolina Department of Crime Control and Public Safety.

 

 

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