National, state and local agencies came to the Button Rock Mountain area Thursday as part of multi-week wildland fire training with the use of helicopters, a fixed-wing plane and on-the-ground firefighters.
Around 9 a.m. Thursday, pilots from and personnel of the Colorado Army National Guard huddled around with state and local firefighters as well as members of the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management to listen in on a briefing prior to the roughly 15-minute flight out to the areas surrounding Ralph Price Reservoir.
After reading the forecast and sharing the concerns of the two hypothetical fires the crews were fighting, Eric Shelton with the Colorado National Guard addressed the crowd.
“Everything we’re doing today is for the worst-case scenario,” Shelton said. “We really hope we never have a fire — we don’t want to see the state on fire — it’s something none of the residents here want, but if it does happen, we want to make sure we are here, we’re ready to go. If it’s going to happen, we’re going to be there to help support it.”
Sonia Straka, an aviation specialist with the Colorado Department of Public Safety who served as the helibase manager for the event, said the training has shown a great cooperation between civilian and military.
“This is over a decade of this training,” Straka said. “We’ve taken a lot of feedback in responding to the needs of both the fire agencies and the Army National Guard in evolving this, and I’m thrilled to still be a part of it.”
Following the briefing, members of the Colorado National Guard put on Star Wars-reminiscent helmets and prepared four Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, including the state-owned Firehawk helicopter, for takeoff.
After touching down in a grassy field designated as a helipad in the South Sheep Mountain area, pilots unloaded their water buckets from the aircraft, attached them to the base of the choppers and took off again to fill them from the local reservoir.
Bright orange material was laid in multiple locations around the hypothetical burn area to resemble flames that crews had to practice dumping water on.
Near the material, wildland firefighters from the U.S. Forest Service watched and practiced communicating with the aviation response. Each bucket holds 600 gallons of water and was dropped with the push of a button.
“The real main focus is with the National Guard, getting them trained up, and then we’re kind of tagging on with a lot of the folks out here today who really haven’t worked with aircraft at all. It’s really just to show them and get them talking with the aircraft,” said Doug Rasmussen, a supervisor for Northern Colorado Helitack with the U.S. Forest Service.
The training is expected to continue through the next couple of weeks, as agencies prepare to enter wildfire season this summer.
Boulder Fire-Rescue Wildfire Operations Specialist Erin Doyle, who was the incident commander for Thursday’s training, read the prewritten objective drafted during the planning of the training event.
“Clear communication, strong leadership and a commitment to teamwork will be essential as we execute these objectives,” Doyle read.
Doyle’s colleague, Boulder Fire-Rescue Wildland Fire Division Chief Brian Oliver, thanked the agencies for their commitment.
“Our agency has been involved with this training since its inception, and there’s a pretty cool growth,” Oliver said. “From an agency that’s used the National Guard on an actual incident and seen the dedication of all these folks coming in across jurisdictions, different disciplines, different agencies, to continually improve and get better and set us up for success for when it does happen again, I just want to pass along my gratitude.”
Last year, agencies responded to three wildfires in Boulder County: the Dinosaur Fire in the Boulder area, the Stone Canyon Fire in the Lyons area, and the Lakeshore Fire in the area of Gross Reservoir. One person died and five structures were destroyed as a result of the Stone Canyon Fire. The individual found dead has still not been identified by the Boulder County Coroner’s Office.
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