Nevada officials pressing for newer firefighting aircraft

WASHINGTON — With wildfire season fast approaching, Nevada and California lawmakers are pressing the Air Force to upgrade its Air National Guard fleet of firefighting aircraft in Reno, and locate a new Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron there.

The upgrades face opposition from the Trump administration, which wants to reprogram the funding to build the president’s controversial wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

The Adjutants General Association of the United States in a Feb. 20 letter to Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, specifically complained about potentially losing the money from a program to transfer C-130J aircraft, including those that would go to Nevada.

In addition to wildfire suppression, taking funds from the Air National Guard would also harm “readiness and, thereby, our nation’s warfighting capability,” the Adjutants General Association said.

The National Governors Association said the Pentagon is seeking to reprogram $1.7 billion from the National Guard and Reserve. “Governors are united in urging the administration to reverse course on the planned reprogramming and restore these critical funds,” the association said in a statement. The National Guard is often called upon for help in fighting wildfires and other disaster relief efforts, the association noted.

An Air Force spokeswoman at the Pentagon was not immediately available to comment on the letters.

State, federal lobbying

Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak is heading the effort that began this year and continues with a lobbying push by lawmakers asking the Pentagon to move aircraft and the new medical squad to the Nevada Air National Guard Base in Reno where roughly 1,000 Air Force members are located.

This month, all four senators from Nevada and California — Catherine Cortez Masto, Jacky Rosen, Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris, all Democrats — urged Air Force Secretary Barbara Barrett to transfer eight C-130J aircraft that were approved in previous defense spending bills, to Reno.

They cited the ability of the C-130J aircraft for firefighting missions.

The new state-of-the-art aircraft, plus a budgeted upgrade of existing C-130H cargo planes at the base, “would have a substantial impact on the Nevada Air National Guard’s readiness and firefighting capabilities in both Nevada and California,” the senators told Barrett in a February letter.

Over the past decade, Nevada has seen 9.4 million acres burned from forest fires throughout the state, including the northern forested areas and southern mountains where fire recently burned acreage near Mount Charleston, according to the state Senate Committee on Natural Resources.

In California alone last year, there were 7,860 fires that burned 259,860 acres and cost $163 million for suppression efforts, according to the state and the U.S. Forest Service.

Rosen, while previously serving in the U.S. House, supported legislative requests to provide money to upgrade C-130H aircraft used in firefighting operations and the transfer of Air Force aircraft to the Air National Guard.

Language for those requests were included in defense spending bills for fiscal years 2017, and 2019.

Bipartisan support

Nevada’s lone Republican, Rep. Mark Amodei, joined the delegation in urging the Air Force to place the squadron of medical evacuation aircraft and personnel in Reno.

Indeed, efforts to enhance missions at the Reno guard base have been non-partisan except for the controversy of the administration’s attempt to reprogram money approved by Congress for other military projects to continue construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

The Nevada Air National Guard base is home to the 152nd Intelligence Squadron, and the 152nd Airlift Wing, which works with the U.S. Forest Service’s Modular Airborne Fire Fighting System.

Lawmakers noted that aircraft from the Reno base can reach the West Coast within 2½ hours. The scope of coverage from the Nevada base includes the entire Silver State and northern California.

Last year, Sisolak entered into an agreement with the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management and other federal, state and local agencies to share resources to battle wildfires in the state.

In addition to firefighting, the strategic location would also serve the Air Force if it located a newly re-activated 10th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron at the Reno base.

The squadron was active in the 1960s at Kelly AFB in San Antonio, then Travis AFB west of Sacramento until 1975 when it became inactive.

Sisolak told Barrett in a January letter signed by the entire state congressional delegation that the Reno guard base would be an ideal location for a flying ambulance squadron. There are only four such squads located west of the Continental Divide, Sisolak noted.

Contact Gary Martin at gmartin@reviewjournal.com or 202-662-7390. Follow @garymartindc on Twitter.