Fire crews make most of equipment

Fire crews make most of equipment

By PERRY BACKUS of the Missoulian

Paula Chait sorts through backpack pumps to be refurbished at the Northern Rockies Fire Cache warehouse on Enterprise Way in Missoula. Wally Page, left, cleans and tests the pumps and makes sure they are still operational. The warehouse processes all the supplies from the Northern Rockies Fire Cache as they're returned from large wildfires burning in the Northern Region. Photo by MICHAEL GALLACHER/Missoulian

Scattered out among fire camps from north Idaho to North Dakota, Pat Nooney has upward of $24 million in fire gear that he's looking to get back soon.

This year, the supply management officer at the U.S. Forest Service's Northern Rockies Interagency Support Cache in Missoula may just have to wait.

“We're not seeing the influx of equipment right now like we've seen in previous years,” Nooney said. “This year's been very slow getting those returns back.”

The Forest Service's new strategy that allows some fires to burn longer is requiring firefighters to keep their Pulaskis, water pumps and miles of fire hose at the ready.

“They are tending to hang on much longer to that equipment just in case they might need it,” Nooney said. “They're letting some of these fires burn until weather puts them out or the snow flies.”

The agency's new policy of “appropriate management response” is being tested this year in the Northern Rockies region. Some fires are being allowed to burn longer in an effort to reduce fuels and reintroduce fire back on the landscape.

Where fires threaten homes, firefighters resort to “old school” strategies of fire suppression that often include getting a line around the fire and putting it out.

“There's not like a universal strategy for every fire,” Nooney said. “Every single fire has its own distinctive strategy. ... It all depends on location.”

For Nooney and the others who gather up thousands of pieces of fire gear every year, the new strategy has pushed back the annual chore.

“It's showing up at a much slower pace this year,” Nooney said. “For us, it's kind of nice. We're not nearly as stretched thin.”

Nooney and crew sort through piles of equipment to decide what's reusable and what's not.

“We reuse everything as often as possible,” Nooney said. “We do our best to get the maximum life out of every product ... instead of using a tool once and throwing it away, we'll try to use it 100 times or more if that's possible.”

One of Nooney's favorite examples is the 1967 water pump that's been refurbished over and over again.

“Not all of our equipment is that old, of course,” he said. “That's really pushing the life of that piece of machinery. We do definitely give the taxpayer the biggest bang for their buck.”

Every piece of equipment - from the tiniest water nozzle to the largest water pump - is logged both in and out of the 40,000-square-foot warehouse at the Forest Service's Aerial Fire Depot.

Nooney is proud that nearly all of it finds its way back.

“This cache is more of a stickler about keeping track of where our property is,” he said. “Nationally, there's a 16 percent loss. Our loss is somewhere between 6 (percent) and 8 percent.”

When the equipment is returned, crews decide whether it can be put back on the shelf or if it needs to be refurbished first. Some, of course, ends up in the trash.

“We shoot to have all that completed by Dec. 15,” Nooney said.

That deadline might be harder to meet considering the fact equipment isn't being returned on the same schedule - especially when some of the equipment has to be washed down outdoors.

The crews refurbish close to 300 miles of fire hose. All of which needs to be sprayed and pressure tested.

“Our warm temperatures are pretty much over at the end of October,” Nooney said. “It's going to be a challenge getting that kind of work completed on time.