Firefighting technology hasn’t changed much from the days when Chief of the National Guard Bureau Gen. Daniel R. Hokanson dropped buckets of water from a UH-60 Black Hawk, and his brother, a smokejumper, parachuted in to fight wildfires on foot. What has changed is the ...
High temperatures and drought across the West are sparking an almost unprecedented operations tempo for Air Force firefighting C-130s and aircrews. C-130s from three Air National Guard wings and an Air Force Reserve wing are flying missions with the Modular Airborne Firefighting System, supporting the ...