Members from volunteer fire departments in Glenn County, California, line up for a photo at the Ready Reserve Program Training held in Willows, California in 2009. (photo: USFWS)

by Mark Rakestraw, Sacramento NWRC The Department of Interior (DOI) Ready Reserve program was established to increase rural fire department safety and effectiveness in wildland and wildland-urban interface firefighting. By sponsoring and/or facilitating focused, local-level training opportunities both the agency and fire department benefit from long-term cooperative relationships and enhanced firefighting capabilities. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge Complex (SNWRC) has been working cooperatively with other DOI partners to provide extensive training efforts to rural and volunteer fire departments around northern California. Last year, fire staff from the SNWRC helped coordinate an incident command system training in January and Crew Boss and Engine Boss training in February for fire departments throughout Glenn County. The Willows Fire Department provided the facilities and nine different volunteer fire departments had firefighters participate at each training session. All of the fire departments involved with the training program have responded to wildfires on refuge lands and this training will benefit the SNWRC and local communities by the quality of local firefighting capabilities.