California’s Air National Guard installs new retardant ground tanks

The permanent ground tanks, known as Modular Airborne Fire Fighting System pits (MAFFS pits), were installed at 146 AW’s Channel Islands Air National Guard Station, and will increase the surge capabilities of all wildfire suppression agencies operating in southern California and are expected to reduce potential delays to the retardant refilling process.

As well as 146 AW, the tanks support firefighting operations by the US Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service, and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE).

The new tanks offer increased capacity for retardant storage at the site and replace legacy tanks at the 146 AW site which were limited to batches of 10,000 gallons at a time. Previously, the capacity of the old MAFFS pits meant that ground crews could only refill three aircraft at a time before being required to mix more retardant. In addition, the upgraded MAFFS pits are now also able to provide retardant for Very Large Air Tankers (VLAT).

The new tanks quintuple the base’s previous retardant capacity

US Air National Guard Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Miller, a MAFFS pilot with the 115th Airlift Squadron said: “We will now have a much larger and faster capability to deliver retardant to the local area, as the ground tank size has increased five-fold from a 10,000-gallon capacity to 50,000-gallons.”

He added that beyond the volume increase, the fact that the new tanks are enclosed means that it is now possible to have retardant on hand when fires begin, rather than having to mix retardant when the crisis is already underway.

“One of the massive tanks uses circulating pumps to mix the water and powder, and the additional 25,000-gallon tank provides storage capabilities for the retardant, and has a built in buffer capability during high demand. Enclosed tanks also mean the retardant in the tanks can be stored for an extended period of time. They can provide the capability to deliver retardant even before the base is fully activated for operations,” Miller explained.

The base is the first to have a permanent tank capacity of over 10,000 gallons

Miller added that the Californian aerial firefighting community had previously recognized the need for a more robust reload capability, with the limited number of tanker bases available in the region causing extensive delays to reloading times at some MAFFS pits.

The Channel Islands Air National Guard Station, which is located near the Pacific Coast Highway and west of Los Angeles, was chosen because of its strategic location and ability to improve firefighting capacity in an otherwise underserved region. It is the first Air National Guard base to be equipped with a permanent tank capacity of over 10,000 gallons.

Elsewhere in California, Santa Barbara County Fire Department received the delivery of an aerial firefighting helicopter from United Rotorcraft last month, for use by its Air Support Unit.