I conducted the trials for the C130 MAFFs on 1982-83 for the Vic and Fed Government which included Ash Wednesday and the fires around that time. The aircraft was restricted to a few airfields, Mangalore, East Sale and Horsham due to the high AUW required and the high temperatures normally associated with the fire season. Operating only one aircraft did not provide the concentration of effort required. In the US the aircraft are in a holding pattern and provide continuous retardant. Our turn around times were about fifteen to twenty minutes but transit generally meant about one hour between drops.
The operation was also costly with one MAFFS unit costing $1Mil to hire from the US Government. The units held about 3000 Gals of retardant so the total weight with the MAFFS unit made it about 40,000 lbs. This meant that you needed to hold additional fuel in the outboard tanks to maintain a 3G tolerance which increased the AUW.
The MAFFS did enable to provide 1 to 3 drops per sortie depending on the number of tanks selected and pressurised. There were 5 tanks plus the deployment tubes. Small fires could be triangulated and contained. In all cases help was still needed from the fire fighters on the ground as it only retarded the fires rather than extinguishing them.
Still it made for some pretty interesting flying.