Mobile Airborne Fire Fighting System to be Tested May 4-7

Between May 4 and 7, approximately 150 civilian and military personnel with gather in Greenville for the annual Mobil Airborne Fire Fighting Systems or MAFFS training and certification. During these training session, military C-130s equipped with MAFFS will drop water on 4 target sites identified in the Pisgah National Forest, Sumter National Forest, and Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest. The training will be hosted by the US Forest Service and the North Carolina Air National Guard Each year, an average of approximately 73,000 wildfires burn an average of about 7 million acres of land in the United States. MAFFS is a joint program of the US Forest Service and the US Department of Defense. MAFFS are portable fire retardant delivery systems that can be inserted into military C-130 aircraft without major structural modifications. They can discharge their entire load of up to 3,000 gallons of retardant in less than 5 seconds, covering an area one-quarter mile long and 100 feet wide. The MAFFS can be refilled in less than 12 minutes.