Wildland Fire

WILDLAND FIRE

BES provides skilled and certified wildland fire services for deployment to forest, grassland, and any other wildland fires in support of local and county fire departments. In addition to direct fire suppression and mitigation, BES can provide incident support in a variety of ways through our other services, including staging and evacuations. BES can also provide support to IMT and EOC operations as needed.

All BES firefighters are certified to national standards of wildland firefighting including the National Wildfire Coordinating Group. Some firefighters and non-firefighting personnel are additionally certified in other skills through NWCG, FEMA All-Hazards, and other certifying bodies.

BES wildland firefighting services:

  • Wildland firefighting hand crew, both FFT2 and FFT1 members.
  • Staging area management.
  • Ropes & rigging / fireline search and rescue.
  • Evacuation support.
  • Aerial recon via the UAS function.
  • Traffic control and closure via support services function.
  • Incident management team (IMT) and emergency operation center (EOC) support.

Challenges include:

  • Maintaining annual skills via refreshers including both didactic, field skills, and physical fitness for the arduous tasks required in wildland firefighting.
  • Training and certifying more obscure and rare skills to the level required for national certification.
  • Developing and maintaining partner department awareness of the diverse services available for wildland firefighting support.