Friday, August 22, 2014

More on eastern crews working western USA wildfires

I wrote about eastern and southern state wildland firefighting crews working western wildfires in an August 18th post. I'd like to thank one of my buddies who helped me out by pointing the way to where I could keep current on eastern USA state crews working wildfires outside their state. I'm keeping it simple by focusing on eastern crews. I go to the webpage for the Eastern Area Coordination Center and access two files, one under logistical operations-crews and the other under predictive services-intelligence.

Under logistical operations-crews, I access a report (updated daily when crews are on assignment) called the Interagency Resource Representative IARR Report (this link may access a different document than the one I am referring to). This report lists all eastern wildland firefighting crews that are on assignment outside the eastern area. the fires where they are working, and what they are doing. The crews are listed by a short identifier. Some of the identifiers are easy (I think) to figure out as I'll see the state abbreviation followed by S and in some cases a number.

For example, as I write this, NJS #2 (a crew from the New Jersey designated as #2) is working the Deception Complex fires in Oakridge OR. Other crews from the eastern area that are working the Deception Complex include (assuming that my identification is correct) include crews from the following states: Minnesota, Michigan, Maine, and New Jersey. There are three other crews working that fire that I'm not including because I am unfortunately unable to decipher their short identifier.

A crew from Pennsylvania is listed as traveling home, they were working the Happy Camp Complex of fires in Happy Camp, CA.

A Wisconsim crew is currently assigned to the Initial Attack in the Mt. Hood National Forest in Estacada, OR.

Crews from Delaware and another crew from Pennsylvania are being released from the Upper Falls Fire (Winthrop WA) and will be reassigned.

A second crew from Michigan that was working the Johnson Bar Fire (Kooskia, ID) has been demobilized and is returning home, as is a second crew from Minnesota (had worked the Seepay Fire in Ronan, MT).

Finally, a second document that may be helpful, is found under predictive services-intelligence. It is the current morning briefing and includes a summary of eastern crews out on assignment along with current wildfire activity in the eastern area.

Added 8:50 PM on Aug 22, 2014: The National Interagency Coordination Center (NICC) has a map where the different Geographic Area Coordination Centers are mapped (GACC). While I believe that the NICC site and the other GACC sites also have a predictive services and a logistics page, they may be set up differently. However, you may be able to find information about where wildland firefighting crews in your area are working.

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