Mountain Home Air Force Base outlines readiness, training and community projects to Idaho committee

Colonel Mike Alfaro, wing commander at Mountain Home Air Force Base, briefed the Idaho House Transportation and Defense Committee on the base’s mission focus, training initiatives and community projects, stressing readiness for what he called a renewed era of great‑power competition.

Alfaro told the committee the base is “laser focused on China, as our pacing threat” and said the Air Force must prepare for higher attrition and more-contested operations than in recent decades. He described exercises and organizational experiments intended to improve survivability and disperse forces, and outlined infrastructure and quality‑of‑life projects the base is pursuing with local and federal partners.

The briefing matters to Idaho communities that host training ranges, military families and local governments because it tied mission needs to local projects — including airspace changes that would allow pilots to train down to 100 feet, a multiyear water pipeline and treatment project for the base, and a federally funded elementary school to be built on the installation.

Alfaro said the base is testing new concepts for force employment. He described the Deployable Combat Wing and Air Base Wing validation exercise — called DAVE — and a…