GREENVILLE, S.C., - Military officials from Thailand observed airmen from the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserves training for use of the Modular Airborne Fire Fighting System here at the South Carolina Technology and Aviation Center this week.
Thailand has had C-130 aircraft since the early 1980s and has equipped them with a MAFFS unit to fight forest fires for the last 10 years, supplementing their BT-67 aircraft used to fight forest fires by attaching a tank to the bottom of the aircraft.
"The Thailand government requested training through the Air National Guard and the Air Force Reserves due to personnel turnover leading to a shortage of qualified crewmembers," said Chief Master Sgt. Jim "Spike" Riley of the Colorado Air Force Reserve.
Colorado Air Force Reserve members went to Thailand to train and certify pilots and loadmasters to perform the MAFFS missions.
Thailand sent eight members of the Royal Thai Air Force to attend the MAFFFS training exercise here, including pilots of firefighting aircraft, lead plane pilots, ground personnel and a special operations officer.
"We would like to attend this event yearly in the future to share techniques and lessons learned," said Group Capt. Nimit Kraigatoke of the Royal Thai Air Force.
The MAFFS training exercise is used to prepare and certify military flight crews rotating flying time, performing maneuvers to prepare them for the unique challenges which entail the MAFFS mission such as low-level flying through gorges and over mountain sides and the intense pace of repeated drops and refills of fire retardant in rapid succession.
Members of military and civilian organizations completed MAFFS training operations April 30 after nearly 130 flying missions throughout the week over the Chattahoochee, Francis Marion, Pisgah, and Nantahala forests.
The recurrent training, which took several months of planning, is essential to assist in containing wildfires throughout the U.S. by dropping fire retardant slowing the fires progression, allowing the ground firefighters to attack the blazes.
"The training this week has been extremely successful. The military's cooperation with the wildlife fire agencies has been wonderful, we've worked together so well," said Lee Burwell, the regional ranger for North Carolina Division of Resources. "Some of the successes I would say we've had are just the relationships we've built. The mission has gone so smoothly and that can be attributed to all these agencies' ability to work together."
Lt. Col. Bryan Allen, deputy commander of the 146th Air Expeditionary Group, said the training is important, because "everything has to work perfectly. We have a reaction time for the California National Guard of 13 hours from phone call to being able to disperse retardant. Now, everything has to work perfectly in that scenario ... Normally it's 24-48 hours before we can start."
Just four years removed from the record-high 2,251,409 acres of forest burnt in 2006, meteorologists predict a devastating wildfire season in 2010.
"The outlook for this year's fire season looks like we could have some devastating fires in the western United States, specifically in the northwest, they've had a really dry winter," said Burwell. "That's where the main focus is this summer."
Officials from the National Interagency Fire Center said from May through July above normal significant fire potential is expected to develop across portions of Florida, southern and northern California, Oregon, and Alaska, with persisting above normal potential across the leeward side of the Hawaiian Islands.
"It's a very rewarding mission," said said Lt. Col. Dennis Bailey, MAFFS training commander. "I've been flying since '92 and it's very rewarding to do the drop and find out that people's lives and properties have been saved."