Two specially configured C-130s from the California Air National Guard’s 146th Airlift Wing at Channel Islands ANG Station on Wednesday deployed to Kirtland AFB, N.M., to help contain wildfires that have been raging for nearly two weeks in the southwestern United States. Those containment missions are scheduled to begin Thursday. These aircraft carry the Modular Airborne Firefighting System, self-contained equipment that can discharge 3,000 gallons of water or fire retardant in less than five seconds on an area one-quarter of a mile long by 60 feet wide. Previously this year, MAFFS-equipped C-130s from across the nation helped fight wildfires in Texas and northern Mexico. (Tyndall report by Tom Saunders)
The U.S. sent Air Force F-16s over central Syria in a show of force following the Dec. 13 killing of two U.S. Army Soldiers and one American civilian Interpreter by a gunman linked to the Islamic State group.
