Photo By Sgt. 1st Class James McGuire | Wyoming Cowboy ChalleNGe Academy Cadet Chris Garcia, 18, of Cheyenne is among a varied...... read more read more
CAMP GUERSEY, Wyo. - In July 2012 a fire in Sawmill Canyon left more than 12,000 acres of Camp Guernsey Joint Training Center land scorched and another 2,000 acres of its neighbors’ landscape affected.
While the three-member full-time fire fighting staff did the best they could at the time to prepare for and fight wildfires, it was clearly undermanned, underfunded and overpowered.
Today is a much different story at Camp Guernsey. There is a 12-member full-time fire fighting force, the only one in the county; a full-time safety officer; more than 100 National Wildfire Coordinating Group Red Card holders, trained in basic fire fighting skills and prepared to pitch in if needed; new and updated equipment; a comprehensive fire mitigation plan; well maintained fire breaks surrounding the camp’s boundaries; and a great working relationship with all surrounding community fire departments, among many other changes for the better.
“We always knew we had a deficiency in our fire assets, and frankly after Sawmill Canyon there came an opportunity through state and federal funding and authorizations to make the hires of full-time staff and to address equipment issues,” base operations manager Col. Richard Knowlton said. “We took advantage of that and it puts us in a position to be responsive, and have a force that’s effective and well equipped, and also to be able to go out there and share those resources with the community.”
Camp Guernsey Fire Department Capt. Mark Streets was off duty the day the Sawmill Canyon fire was started by a Colorado Army National Guard unit training with ammunition and explosives. He became the initial incident commander after he got the call at his home in Laramie, and reported to duty at the camp.
“We had several Army units trying to fight the fire when I got here around (2:30 p.m.), and we started some burnout operations when we got a few more resources,” Streets said. “We knew we would have to try and hold it here, but it got away and blew up on us. It jumped the road we were trying to use as a fire break and climbed up the other side of the canyon wall.”
He said it was around 6 p.m. and there were about 45 firefighters on scene when they decided they would have to change strategies.
“Everything lined up weather-wise to make extreme fire behavior,” Streets explained. “And the terrain is just horrible to try and fight fire in.”
Within a couple of days, the fire fighting team grew to roughly 350 firefighters on the ground and was managed by a sophisticated US Forest Service Type 3 Incident Command Team.
Streets said the lessons learned from that event drove a lot of major improvements in the training center’s fire fighting capabilities.
“Communications were a nightmare. There were so many different agencies and they were not able to talk on the same frequencies. We had Guard frequencies and the local community did not. That’s been resolved,” Streets explained. “We have 12 full-time firefighter slots now, instead of three. We didn’t have enough folks with red cards. We have about 100 red-carded firefighters locally, including our mutual aid resources, and we just added another 56 to the roster.”
The camp’s fire department is now part of the Platte County annual operating plan and is able to, and often does, provide mutual aid to local emergency service providers.
Knowlton said he is grateful for the reformed communications and cooperation.
“I would say five years ago, we didn’t have a good relationship, particularly with the fire community. We didn’t have a good relationship with our partners throughout the county or the supporting region. Now we do,” Knowlton said. “It’s largely because of hiring very good, high-quality firefighters and training our force and engaging with the community. Now we have a true partnership. We are not just a consumer of those fire resources, but we are also a provider of those.
“This is the first time we are actually supporting those agencies in their fire fighting efforts. It’s the first time we’ve had an actual operating plan, the legal instrument by which we can exchange our fire fighting assets and resources for mutually beneficial results. We get calls not just for fires, but for ambulance, etcetera, so that’s a 180-degree change from where we were five years ago. We have changed our internal culture of understanding throughout our work force that we impact the community significantly, both positively and negatively and we have to be a part of that community.”
Not only has the culture at the camp changed in recent years, but the way things are done on the ground is significantly better. A detailed matrix outlines when military units may fire ammunition, and based on what they are firing, if firefighters and fire vehicles will be on scene, and if they are, how many and what type.
At the heart of the revamped posture is the 80-20-20 Rule. If the temperature rises above 80 degrees, the wind speed is over 20 mph, and the relative humidity falls below 20 percent, all operations will be shut down until conditions improve. There is now a weather station at the north training area to accurately gauge those factors in the main training area.
Additionally, controlled burning has become a routine task for CGFD crews. Streets and his team have burned more than 2,500 acres in the past year to reduce fuel on the training area.
“We are way more proactive. We’ve implemented a huge prescribed burn plan to help mitigate the risk,” Streets said.
Fuel loads are also reduced by grazing. Camp Guernsey is one of only four military training installations in the country that has a grazing management plan in place; it’s primary purpose being to reduce fuel for fire.
Knowlton emphasized while keeping the training site, and surrounding areas safe from fire, whether accidently or naturally set, is a big deal; job No. 1 must go on.
“It’s very important because we are still deploying soldiers overseas,” Knowlton explained. “This year we are going to support two different (Wyoming) units going into Afghanistan. That’s still a very hazardous environment and we must train these soldiers to be ready to go to do their mission and to come back mentally, physically and spiritually intact. That’s a very challenging and important mission for us to do.”
Military training is a risky business and that risk is addressed at thousands of military training facilities across the world. Camp Guernsey plays an important role in the Department of Defense’s training mission. Whether military members firing missiles at a massive impact area sparks a fire, or Mother Nature sends a lightning bolt into a summer-dried canyon, we are still a nation at war, and therefore need to meet those risks head on, in order to keep our troops and their allies at the top of their game.
The CGJTC staff is making good use of lessons learned to set a new standard of excellence in both training and safety. While there is never a guarantee that everything will be perfect, in this imperfect world, there is a desire to strive for it at Guernsey. The tens of thousands of soldiers, airmen, Marines and sailors that come through every year can count on it and so can the community surrounding the facility.
| Date Taken: | 04.10.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 04.10.2015 12:41 |
| Story ID: | 159647 |
| Location: | CAMP GUERNSEY, WYOMING, US |
| Web Views: | 188 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Camp Guernsey blazes new trails in fire fighting, by SFC James McGuire, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
