MAFFS Mission Report

July 3nd, 2008

Today’s topic is the morning briefings.

What might look like a late morning, causal get together on the tanker base tarmac is actually an important time for fire fighters and support staff to share information that later in the day could be crucial for public and firefighter safety.

Operational briefings, as they are called under the Incident Command System (ICS), are typically held at 6:00 a.m. The expectation is that the firefighters on the ground, including fire engines and hand crews, will get out to the fireline in the relatively cool of the morning as they prepare for what could be another strenuous day dealing with hot temperatures, steep slopes, thick, tinder-dry vegetation and scorching flames as the day warms and fire behavior starts picking up.

But out at McClellan tanker base, which has become the temporary home for the eight C-130 cargo planes that have been set up as MAFFS air tankers, the morning briefing is not conducted until 9:30 a.m.

The pilots, flight and ground crews, and agency people will gather around the MAFFS Liaison Officer (MLO) and the Mission Commander as they oversee the briefing where participants will discuss the previous days efforts, the current situation, including the predicted fire weather forecast, and plan for the day’s missions, with the emphasis always on safety.

To some this might seem like a fashionably late start for this critical firefighting tool. The fact is that often the early visibility at the fires is poor due to inversions from the night before that holds the thick smoke close to the ground and blankets the terrain making effective fire retardant drops challenging at best and even more dangerous flying conditions.

Also, given that the pilots can only fly so many hours in a day, the fire commanders at the scene would prefer the tankers be available during the heat of the afternoon when the fire spread may be making threatening runs toward homes and valuable resources.

Sometimes this results in the planes returning from making fire drops up to just before sunset and with long flight distances to land on a lighted runway as the sun settles in the smoke-infused orange-tinted sky.

But that is the job of the MAFFS aircrafts and the many hard working people supporting them.

As one of the crew on MAFFS 3 said yesterday, “This is a real homeland security mission.”