Wildland Fire School & Field Training Exercises to Begin in Oregon

Add Feedback

Share |

For the 15th consecutive year, fire management officials from the U.S. Forest Service, Oregon Department of Forestry, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde are hosting an interagency Fire School. The week-long classroom and field-based training session is designed to prepare new firefighters for the rigors of battling blazes, both in Oregon's forests and in rural-urban interface areas.

"Fire School provides essential training in wildland fire for new firefighters and gives career firefighters a chance to refresh their skills and explore leadership opportunities," said Co-Incident Commander Ed Keith, Sweet Home Unit Forester with the Oregon Department of Forestry. "A nearby forest landowner, Cascade Timber Consulting, Inc., has agreed to let us use one of their harvest units as a field site," he added. "The terrain and vegetation found at the site will greatly enhance the students' training experience."

Approximately 200 trainees from a variety of agencies across western Oregon including four National Forests - the Willamette, Siuslaw, Umpqua, and Rogue River-Siskiyou, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Land Management, and Oregon Department of Forestry will be in attendance. The interagency school takes place Monday, June 20th through Friday, June 24th at Sweet Home High School.

CLASSES AND FIELD EXERCISES
Trainees spend the first part of the week in an intensive classroom setting that includes several field sessions. Courses being offered this year include basic fire behavior; communications; teamwork; leadership development; fireline safety; use of engines, tools and hose lays; fire in the rural-urban interface; and fire investigation. Students sleep in tents in the school yard and eat their meals together, giving them a taste of what it's like to be in a real fire camp. The five-day course culminates in a live fire exercise on Friday, June 24th where they can apply and develop their newly acquired skills and knowledge by suppressing and mopping-up a real fire.

Co-Incident Commanders Paul Hiebert, Fire Management Officer for the Detroit and Sweet Home Ranger Districts of the Willamette National Forest, and Ed Keith with the Oregon Department of Forestry, have more than 40 years of firefighting experience between them. Both see Fire School as an engaging and collaborative way to train firefighters in tactical skills and safety. Working together in a training setting helps improve communications and builds effective relationships for the agencies to draw on during fire season.

"Wildland fire safety principles are always at the forefront of our training exercises," said Hiebert. "The live fire simulation helps students gain familiarity with working in a fire setting while applying newly learned skills such as how to construct fireline with a pulaski and use water pumps to cool off smoldering stumps and logs. The students also get to experience the interagency coordination that occurs during incident response."

For more information, please contact Public Information Officers Jennifer O'Leary, (503)298-8190, or Cynthia Orlando, (503)945-7421.



Author:Oregon Department of Forestry Press Release