As the wildland fire season continues in the western United States, the Defense Coordinating Officer to the National Interagency Fire Center is seeing the results of his team’s preseason planning efforts.
Army Col. Gary Stanley said he and the Region X Defense Coordinating Element worked hard before the start of the Western fire season to add or increase military capabilities available to the Fire Center for wildfire response.
Stanley is one of 10 U.S. Army North Defense Coordinating Officers who coordinate defense support of civil authorities for U.S. Northern Command, the unified command responsible for homeland defense and civil support in the continental United States.
The preparations began paying off when Stanley and the Region X Defense Coordinating Element deployed to the Fire Center in late June to coordinate requests in support of wildland firefighting efforts in California.
“Less than a week after being activated, we had coordinated a request for our first four military helicopters with water buckets to fly on the fires,” Stanley said. “Within 10 days, six Marine Corps and two Navy helicopters had made nearly 500 drops totaling more than 160,000 gallons of water.”
Although military bucket helicopters have long been used for firefighting on military installations, the aircraft had not been used to support civilian firefighting efforts for more than 10 years, said Air Force Lt. Col. Scott Tagg, the Air Force’s emergency preparedness liaison officer to Idaho.
“We worked over the winter and spring with the state of California and the U.S. Forest Service to ensure the helicopters and crews were certified and could be integrated into civilian operations,” Tagg said.
The helicopters joined eight C-130 Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard aircraft outfitted with Modular Airborne Fire Fighting Systems known as “MAFFS.” The U.S. Forest Service-owned units slide into the back of military cargo planes, turning them into air tankers that drop retardant to lower flames and reduce fire intensity in support of ground firefighters.
The eight MAFFS units have all been refurbished, with the first two called to duty on June 20.
“For the first time in three years, we’ve had all eight MAFFS-equipped aircraft employed,” Stanley said. “In the first 10 days of flying this year, there were more than 200 sorties flown and more than 570,000 gallons of retardant dropped on fires in California.”
Stanley added that the team worked with the Fire Center and U.S. Northern Command to develop protocols for the use of military still imagery and video capabilities that would allow the federal firefighting community to better assess wildland fires.
In addition, the Defense Coordinating Element has assigned Tagg as a liaison officer to work at the Fire Center year-round to ensure continued seamless integration of federal military assets.
“Having someone at the Fire Center full-time allows us to maintain good working relationships with the agencies here,” Stanley said. “We will also be able to continue the important preseason planning efforts that have proven so successful this season.”
The National Interagency Fire Center has representatives of eight different agencies and organizations who prioritize requirements and allocate resources for wildland firefighting operations. Decisions are made using the interagency cooperation concept because the Fire Center has no single director or manager.
The Fire Center began in 1965 as the Boise Interagency Fire Center (BIFC) because the US Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and National Weather Service saw the need to work together to reduce the duplication of services, cut costs, and coordinate national fire planning and operations.
The National Park Service and Bureau of Indian Affairs joined the center in the mid 1970s, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service later joined in 1979. The Fire Center's name was changed in 1993 to more accurately reflect its national mission.