PHOTOS: Crews Head Home After Flying C-130s For Wildfire Training In Colorado
JEFFERSON COUNTY, Colo. (CBS4) - After a brief weather delay, crews from the Colorado Air Force Reserve, 302nd, 146th and 153rd Airlift Wings finished up some wildfire training in the Denver metro area. The crews flew C-130s over the Arapaho, Roosevelt and Pike National Forests to conduct water drops.
The C-130s are equipped to drop up to 3,000 gallons of fire retardant in less than 10 seconds. They are only activated when all commercial air tankers are already in use.
This was part of a program between the Department of Defense and U.S. Forest Service call the Modular Airborne Fire Fighting System program.
Aside from the crew from Colorado, the units came from Nevada, California, Wyoming and the U.S. Air Force Reserve unit.
Officials tells CBS4 they finished their operations on Saturday and crews started the trips back home on Sunday morning.
"Our fire training this year is going to be vital. We're coming out of a COVID season where our training was hampered. We were not able to get folks into the same room and share lessons learned and new tactics, this year's strategies and technologies so we can do this safely," said Lt. Col. Richard Pantusa, Aerial Firefighting Chief.
