Out amid the center’s often bone-dry sage brush and cheat grass, the civilian department handles scores of range fires each year, including those sparked by live ammunition or hot exhaust from military vehicles.
When not on wildland fires, they often help Yakima Valley firefighters on both house and range fires.
It’s a department willing and able to help when big fires break out in Central Washington.
But federal fire officials don’t call when there’s a major fire.
Turns out the department isn’t listed on the national wildland firefighter database. As a result the department is not recognized when federal firefighting authorities take control of a fire. In fact, they’ve actually been turned away from a fire at least once.
That’s what happened back in 2013 at a rangeland fire burning off State Route 24 roughly 30 miles east of Yakima. When a federally recognized incident command team took over — which typically happens in large fires — the Training Center firefighters were told to return home.
It’s a problem of getting into the national wildland firefighter database, Ryan Lacey, assistant chief for the Training Center’s department, told the Governor’s Wildland Fire Council at a recent meeting in Union Gap.
The issue is likely to persist through this summer.
While no firm date has been set, the goal is to get on the list by the end of the year, said Steven Kruger, Training Center spokesman.
Toward that end, the base is in discussions with the state Department of Natural Resources to get the team added to the database.
The department has about 20 to 25 full-time firefighters, a number that increases in the summer when 10 seasonal fighters are brought on to assist. Members have the same “red card” certification that state and federal wildland firefighters are required to have and many have training that allows them to operate without direct supervision.
The Training Center’s fire department handles 85 brush fires a year.
“We probably fight more wildland fires than anybody,” Kruger said.
The department routinely assists local fire agencies with both structural and wildland fires as part of mutual aid pacts. Just last week, Training Center crews worked alongside firefighters from Highland, West Valley and Naches Heights to snuff out a brush fire near Terrace Heights.
Speaking to the state Wildland Fire Council, which was convened in the wake of the state’s devastating wildfires in North Central Washington last year, Lacey and Training Center interim fire chief Chris Dykstra said the department has resources it can send out to assist with wildfires at a moment’s notice.
But despite its experience, the department does not get called if a federal wildland fire command team is in charge, they said.
The Incident Qualification System is a national database showing the certifications of wildland firefighters, and their availability to work a wildland fire, Kruger said.
West Valley Fire Chief Dave Leitch, who was an incident commander at last year’s Cougar Creek fire near Mount Adams, said fire dispatchers will call in units from the IQS list. Incident commanders, Leitch said, have no say in who responds.
And — until now — Training Center firefighters have not been placed on the list because base officials didn’t see a need for it.
Kruger said the thought behind leaving the Training Center crew off the list was the department was working primarily on its own land, and it wasn’t necessary to be on the national list to honor its mutual-aid pacts with local agencies.
That news came as a shock to at least one Yakima County fire official.
“I thought it was a surprise,” said Jakki MacLean, Yakima County Fire Marshal of learning that Training Center firefighters are not called up for major fires. “They have mutual aid agreements with all the departments in the Valley.”
Ted Pierce, emergency operations manager for the Northwest Incident Command Center, which provides logistical support for wildland fire operations in Washington and Oregon, said he was not familiar with the Training Center’s situation, but said a fire department seeking to be placed on the list the list has to be “hosted” by an agency and its qualifications must be certified.
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