 The Nevada Air National Guard's 152nd Airlift Wing and Wyoming Air National Guard's 153rd Airlift Wing completed their annual week-long Modular Airborne Firefighting System, or MAFS, certification training on Sunday, at the Channel Islands Air National Guard Station, California. The two guard units flew continuous sorties during daylight hours throughout the week, which began on April 10th and concluded on April 15th. Here, military air crews were guided by U.S. Forest Service lead plane pilots into a flight pattern to drop water along a simulated fire line. Once certified, these C-130 crews can be called upon to support the Forest Service in aerial firefighting when civilian crews are over-tasked and a military surge capacity is required. It's a very dangerous mission. By the time MAFS is requested assistance, generally speaking, we are in a situation where resources are running thin, fires, especially in the southwest and the west coast here. They've been astronomical the past few years and so MAFS has been asked to engage and when we're doing that, there's no time for that relationship building. Ground crews consisting of personnel from several federal and state agencies, including the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Cal Fire, and others also participated in the certification training. This year's training was split into two iterations. The second, which will occur in May of this year, will be attended by the California Air National Guard's 146th Airlift Wing and the Air Force Reserve's 302nd Airlift Wing from Peterson Space Base, Colorado. Throughout the week, air crews flew a total of 53 sorties totaling nearly 78 hours of flight time, while dropping 102,500 gallons of water over 242 practice drops. This annual training is funded by the U.S. Forest Service. From the 152nd Airlift Wing Public Affairs, I'm Master Sergeant Garrett Wake.