MAFFS Media Briefing 

Template

*Good morning and welcome to ***(name of facility)***, I’m ***(name and titles of incident management team members and/or agency representatives)***. I’m joined today by ***(names and titles of Department of Defense representatives).***

*As you can see, we have ***(#)*** Department of Defense C-130 aircraft from ***(name and location of wing)***here at the ***(name of airtanker base)***today.  

*These aircraft are equipped with U.S. Forest Service Modular Airborne Firefighting Systems, or MAFFS as we call them. MAFFS are portable fire retardant delivery systems that can be inserted into military C-130 aircraft to convert them into Airtankers when needed.  

*The MAFFS program is a joint effort between the USDA Forest Service and Department of Defense. The USDA Forest Service owns the MAFFS equipment and supplies the retardant, while the Department of Defense provides the C-130 aircraft, pilots, and maintenance and support personnel to fly the missions.

*The USDA Forest Service owns 8 MAFFS units that can be inserted into military C-130s to convert them into Airtankers.  

*A total of ***(#)***MAFFS are currently activated.  ***(#)***will be located here for the time being and the other ***(#)*** will be located ***(where)***.  

*MAFFS are important because they provide a “surge” capability that can be used to boost wildfire suppression efforts when commercial airtankers are fully committed or not readily available.

*The National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) in Boise, Idaho has activated MAFFS to assist with current fire suppression efforts and to ensure that we are prepared to respond to new wildfires or increases in activity on existing wildfires.

*NIFC is the nation’s support center for wildland firefighting. Nine different agencies and organizations representing federal, state, and local government have a presence at NIFC (Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Fire Administration, National Association of State Foresters, Department of Defense, and National Weather Service). Additional information about NIFC is available at www.nifc.gov

****Discuss local, regional, and national fire activity as appropriate***.  

- over - 

*Airtankers play an important role in wildfire suppression, particularly when wildfires first start, during what we call initial attack. They are used to drop fire retardant to reduce the intensity and slow the growth of wildfires so that firefighters on the ground can build containment lines 

around them. Airtankers are not typically used to drop fire retardant to suppress wildfires directly.  

*Professional Incident Commanders and fire managers decide whether to use Airtankers, and where to use them, to provide support to firefighters working to suppress wildfires based on the objectives they have established to manage wildfires and the strategies they are using to achieve them.

*Wildland firefighting agencies rely first on private companies to supply Airtankers. That is primarily because we pay a daily availability rate to ensure commercial Airtankers are available when needed, whether they are flying or not. During periods of high fire activity, like right now, sometimes there aren’t enough private Airtankers available to meet the needs.

*Having military C-130s that can be converted into Airtankers provides us with a “surge” capacity that is very important.

*Now, I’ll turn it over to ***(name of military representative)*** to talk about use of MAFFs so far this year ***(if appropriate)***, the C-130 aircraft and the MAFFS systems.