Tech Orders,

File: aacep_32.txt
Page: 32
Total Pages: 59

      





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      other members of the Prime BUFF team. They often did not have
      complete team kits, lacking Central tools and equipment. This
      was complicated by the recurring erroneous advice not to bring
      their tools with them. Even when teams did bring the required
      LOOTS and egulp at for a deployment, they were often Split up and
      sent to several bases. Compo~lte teams were assembled from various
      bases and often lacked a complete team kit.
      Fire vebleles arrived at the sites from dives locations.
      Some were in prepositioned storage in theater, some came from u. s .
      A1r Forces in Europe (USAFE) War Reserves Material storage' and one
      came from a base in Korea. Several weeks passed before sites
      received their full complement of vehleles as CENTAF/DE attempted
      to spread the vehleles throughout the theater. Many of these
      vehicles were not operational when they arrived at the sites. Some
      had broken pumps' dry-rotted fan belts and hoses' and few tools'
      a, ~ ~ ~ ~ ~,
      sites' the firefighters needed a P-19. Yet' they could look across
      the road into the propositioning yard and see one sitting there.
      When they asked CENTAF about it, they were told that it was going
      to another location. After several days, a C-l3O aircraft landed
      and off-loaded a P-19 for Seeb, loaded the one from the
      prepositioning yard' and took it to another base. ~
      Locating firefighting agent- was a challenge for most
      firefighters. It was not preposItloned and vehicles did not come
      with it. Prepositioned flightline fire extinguishers were all
      empty when delivered to the sites. Firefighters bad to purchase it
      on the local economy at a much higher cost than in the Unlted
      States. Flreflghters also encountered problems at several sites
      with the connection required to ~ervlce baron tanks on vehleles.
      The threads of the American-made vehicle did not match up with the
      B~ltlsh-made reservlelug equipment. Many sites had to have
      connectors specially fabricated to permit reservicing.
      Nearly all of the sites relied upon some level of host nation
      firefighting assistance. In the early weeks' Air Force fire
      fighters often shared a faculty and equipment with the host
      nation. This was not the optimal sltuatlon' so Alr Force
      flreflghters moved into their own facility as soon as practlcaI.
      The host nation capabllltles varied widely among the sites. While
      the egulpment was usually float rate, the training of the personnel
      was less than satisfactory in the opinion of Air Force
      flreflghters. At a few sites, the host nation fire chief was a
      retired Air Force f1refighte-. At bases such as Calf and Jeddah,
      the situation was further complicated by the presence of both a
      boat nation military and clvlllan fire department. Ibis meant
      coordinating among three different departments and establlshlng
      co _ on response procedures. Air Force flreflghters provided
      countless hours of training to the host nation flreflghters if the
      local department was needed to assist in an incident involving an
      merlcan aircraft. They taught classes, showed videos, conducted
      alk-throughs, and drilled together. The language barcler hampered
      the tralnlng. Most of the host nation flreflghters were third
      country nationals and spoke a variety of languages. In the end,