Nevada Air Guard unit begins MAFFS transition

Maj. Ricardo Bravo watched as fires hurdled a ridgeline and crept toward his northern California farm.

But the fire line halted a few hundred yards away -- moments before charring cropland -- after C-130 aircraft dropped thousands of pounds of fire retardant using the U.S. Forest Service's Modular Aircraft Fire Fighting System (MAFFS).

"It was definitely relieving," said Bravo, a navigator with the 152nd Airlift Wing, a Nevada Air National Guard unit stationed in Reno, Nev.
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