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The six Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve Command C-130Hs equipped with the Modular Airborne Firefighting System, or MAFFS, were called in to join the massive firefighting effort in Southern California in late October. Guard crews from the 145th Airlift Wing in Charlotte, North Carolina, and the 153rd AW at Cheyenne, Wyoming, both staging out of NAS Point Mugu, California, flew their first missions into the fires on 24 October. They were later joined by crews from the 302nd AW, the Reserve unit at Colorado Springs, Colorado. The palletized MAFFS units can dispense 3,000 gallons of fire retardant mixed with water in less than five seconds. More than 500,000 acres were burned in the multiple fires plaguing Southern California.
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