Firefighters train in Sisters area forest

Firefighter trainees took their schooling from the classroom to the woods near Sisters last week, gearing up for the peak summer fire season.

Some 61 new Central Oregon wildland firefighters from state and federal agencies completed a week-long training session in Sisters. Also attending the session were one trainee from the Army National Guard and one from The Nature Conservancy. The session was hosted by Central Oregon Fire Management Services.

The 40-hour training session was headquartered at Sisters Middle School where trainees ate and slept in tents. They completed three days of classroom training before heading out for a firefighting exercise just south of town. The courses ended on Friday with a written examination.

“Participating in this year’s interagency training are the Oregon Department of Forestry, the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management,” said Jinny Pitman of the Sisters Ranger District. “The one Army National Guard representative is back from Afghanistan and Iraq and wanted to continue participating in a cooperative program of public service. The Nature Conservancy was represented since they do controlled burning for fuels reduction on their own lands.”

This training is required for all state and federal personnel working on wildland fires, Pitman added. Private contract crews take similar courses before working on fires.

“These people may be called out on any fire in the country as part of a national fire crew, so they must be prepared,” she said.

Classroom training included basic fire behavior, map and compass reading, hazardous materials, fire weather, and leadership. The outdoor training included use of tools, fire suppression, pump and engine operation and the fighting of an actual fire off Three Creeks Road south of Sisters.

“The land we burned is in part of our fuels reduction plan for this area, so we are meeting two goals at the same time: training and reduced fire danger,” Pitman explained. “We will come back here this fall and finish any fuels reduction work that is needed.”

Thursday’s warming temperatures made this field exercise realistic for the trainees

Trainees came to the session with a wide variety of backgrounds. Alvin Colbert, Jr. is from Louisiana where he is a sophomore at Southern University majoring in urban forestry.

“I’ll be on a Forest Service crew here in Sisters,” he said.

Beth Johnson is a fire ecologist with the Forest Service in Bend.

“My work involves studying an area after a wildfire to learn the effects on the land, so I don’t usually get involved in what happens during a wildfire,” she said.