NJ Forest Fire Service 2018 Crew Deployment: Dollar Ridge Fire (UT)

I wrote the other day about what I believe is the first New Jersey Forest Fire Crew (NJS#1) to be deployed to wildfires in other parts of the United States. If you are like me and you wonder if your State has a crew deployed to other parts of the Country, you can go to the Geographic Area Coordination Center National Website Portal and find your local coordination center. In my case, this is the Eastern Area Coordination Center (EACC). Where you go next and the name of the document with crew deployment depends on how the website for your local coordination center is set up. In my case the page that I am looking for is under crews where I am looking for a document called Interagency Resource Representative  Report (IARR). The IARR, updated daily while crews are deployed out of the region, lists crews deployed outside the region. Most crews are listed starting with their two character abbreviation.

So, I know that today New Jersey has one crew, NJS#1 deployed outside the region, to the Dollar Ridge Fire. If possible, I want to know about the wildfire where the crew from my state is deployed. If the wildfire that your crew is deployed to is on federal land, that it will be listed on inciweb. Knowing the name of your fire, you can use the drop down box on the top right to locate the fire you are interested in or find the icon on the interactive map.

I am interested in the Dollar Ridge Fire, which may be found on this inciweb page. I know that the Dollar Ridge has now burned 56,687 acres and is at 60 percent containment. You may look at individual pages for information, announcements, closures, news, photographs, and maps. I usually start by looking at a map to get a geographic perspective. I found two maps of interest, both shared below. I also like to look at the photograph page, in this case there is some very fine fire photography, photos of helicopters, photos of crews, etc.

Dollar Ridge Public Information (7/13/18) obtained on 7/13/18 from https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/maps/5881/

Dollar Ridge Fire Evacuation Areas (7/13/18) obtained on 7/13/18 from https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/maps/5881/

Finally, I try to find out some more specifics of what the crew from my state is doing. This might be more difficult. In my case, there are some social media websites where I can find information about what the NJFFS crews are up to. You might try Facebook or Twitter or even local media. In any event, I was fortunate to find some posts from one of the crew members of the NJS#1 crew on the Facebook Page for the NJFFS Section A2 Firefighters Association. The latest update was posted late on July 12th. The crew spent yesterday working on creating firelines, among other tasks, in preparation for burnout operations that are scheduled for today (dependent on weather conditions). There are some nice photos from a July 11th post.