USA — C‑130s Aid Wildfire Suppression Efforts

PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo., Sept. 14, 2011 — Six Depart­ment of Defense C‑130 Her­cules air­craft under the com­mand and con­trol of U.S. North­ern Com­mand con­tin­ue to aid efforts to con­trol wild­fires in Texas, Ore­gon and Ida­ho at the request of the Nation­al Inter­a­gency Fire Cen­ter in Boise, Ida­ho, offi­cials report­ed.

The air­craft are equipped with U.S. For­est Ser­vice mod­u­lar air­borne fire­fight­ing sys­tems.
As of ear­ly today, DOD air­craft have com­plet­ed the fol­low­ing mis­sions in these states: 

— Texas: Fif­teen drops deliv­er­ing approx­i­mate­ly 44,350 gal­lons of fire retardant; 

— Ore­gon: Two drops deliv­er­ing about 2,700 gal­lons of fire retar­dant; and 

— Ida­ho: Two drops deliv­er­ing approx­i­mate­ly 2,760 gal­lons of fire retardant. 

Units sup­port­ing the Texas oper­a­tions are the 302nd Air­lift Wing, Air Force Reserve, Peter­son Air Force Base, Colo., and the 145th Air­lift Wing, North Car­oli­na Air Nation­al Guard. Both units are deployed to Austin/Bergstrom Inter­na­tion­al Air­port, Texas. 

The sup­port to the north­west­ern Unit­ed States is being pro­vid­ed by the Wyoming Air Nation­al Guard’s 153rd Air­lift Wing, fly­ing out of Boise Inter­na­tion­al Air­port, Idaho. 

At the request of the Fed­er­al Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency, North­com des­ig­nat­ed Ran­dolph Air Force Base Aux­il­iary Field, Seguin, Texas, as a sup­port base to assist in relief efforts. 

Source:
U.S. Depart­ment of Defense
Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense (Pub­lic Affairs)