Modular Airborne Fire Fighting Systems (MAFFS) and Wildfire Suppression

Name/Title of Presenter

Good morning, I’m (name/title).  

I’m joined this morning by (names/titles).  

The Department of Defense is an important partner in wildland fire suppression.

They can provide us with troops to serve as ground firefighters and aircraft to serve as large airtankers.  

Today, we’re going to focus on the aircraft.  These are C-130s that can be equipped with Modular Airborne Firefighting Systems or MAFFS units.  MAFFS are portable fire retardant delivery systems that can be inserted into military C-130 aircraft without major structural modifications to convert them into air tankers when needed.

The USDA Forest Service owns the MAFFS units and the military owns the C-130s.

Having military C-130s that can be converted into Airtankers provides local, state, and federal government agencies that suppress wildland fires with a “surge” capacity is very important during the “shoulder seasons” of late fall and early spring as well as during periods of high fire activity in the summer months.

I am going to give you a brief overview of wildland fire suppression and aerial firefighting in the U.S.  Then, I’ll turn it over to (name/title) who will provide you with more details about MAFFS operations.

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Wildfire Suppression in the U.S.

We have an average of about 70,000 wildfires on private, state, and federal land in the U.S. each year.  

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Wildfire Suppression in the U.S.

Those wildfires burn an average of about 6.5 million acres of private, state, and federal land nationwide annually.

More than 95% of wildfires are suppressed during initial attack, generally within the first 24 hours after they are detected, so only a small percentage become large wildfires.  

Each wildfire has a different response ranging from monitoring to full suppression.

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Aerial Firefighting Overview

Wildfires are suppressed by firefighters on the ground constructing firelines around them.

Airtankers are used to drop fire retardant to reduce the intensity and rate of spread of wildfires so that firefighters on the ground can construct fireline safely.

Airtankers are normally not used to suppress fires directly.

Airtankers are especially important in initial attack, or the early stages of responding to a wildfire, because they can help firefighters on the ground suppress fires while they are still small and keep them from growing into large, dangerous, and costly fires.

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Airtanker Use

We mobilize Airtankers, including MAFFS, for use in wildfire suppression an average of more than 700 times per year.

Note:  Changes in the way air tanker requests are processed in the Resource Ordering and Status System (ROSS) accounts for some of the significant increase in mobilizations since 2013.

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MAFFS Inside and Out

The USDA Forest Service contracts with private companies to provide Airtankers for wildfire suppression.  This year, we expect to have 24 Airtankers available from private companies as well as 1 USDA Forest Service Airtanker.  

During shoulder seasons and during the summer months when there is a lot of fire activity, the demand for Airtankers can exceed the supply.

That’s where the Modular Airborne Firefighting Systems or MAFFS come in.

The USDA Forest Service developed a partnership with the Department of Defense in the 1970s to enable military aircraft to be converted into Airtankers for use in wildfire suppression when needed.  The USDA Forest Service owns 8 MAFFS units that can be inserted into military C-130s to convert them into Airtankers.  

Military C-130s equipped with slide-in MAFFs units can drop up to 3,000 gallons of retardant or suppressant on wildfires.  They can discharge their entire load in under five seconds or make variable drops.

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Criteria for Mobilizing MAFFS

Commitment of civilian airtanker fleet

Current and predicted fire activity

A number of factors are taken into consideration when we decide to deploy MAFFS.  The two major ones are the availability of Airtankers in the commercial fleet and current and predicted wildfire activity.

Since the USDA Forest Service pays a “daily availability” rate to commercial airtankers on Exclusive Use contracts whether they are flying or not, they are generally mobilized first.  

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MAFFS Use

During busy fire seasons, MAFFS are used a lot. 

Over the last 10 years, military C-130s equipped with MAFFS have delivered a total of approximately 8.6 million gallons of fire retardant on wildfires, an average of approximately 860,000 gallons per year. In 2017, MAFFS dropped about 820,000 gallons of retardant. 

I’m going to turn it over to (name/title) now to talk to you about MAFFS from the military perspective.

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MAFFS Retardant Drop