Fire and Ice
North Dakota Firefighter Goes “Down Under” to Help Control Wildfires in Victoria, Australia
Most Februarys, Doug Downs is knee-deep in snow and ice in his hometown of Kenmare, North Dakota, where winter snowfall averages 2 to 3 feet. This year, the Western North Dakota District Fire Management Officer was thousands of miles from home in Victoria, Australia, where he led other firefighters working to control one of Australia’s fiercest wildfires which burned more than 620,000 acres.
Doug and other U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service personnel – John Saltenberger from the Northwest Interagency Coordinator Center in Oregon; Kenneth Griggs from San Luis NWR complex in California, and Lisa Jameson of Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) in the Florida everglades -- joined nearly 60 other fire management experts from 14 states.
Brian McManus, Chief of the Service’s Fire Management Branch located at the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, also visited Australia to represent the National Multi-Agency Coordinating Group at the debrief and close-out for the American fire resources. His visit included a tour of burned areas, active fires and fire facilities to learn how fire is managed and to identify ways to further improve coordination between the two countries.
In addition to the Service, team members represented the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Land Management (BLM), National Park Service (NPS) and the U.S. Forest Service (FS). Their purpose was to fulfill Australia’s request to the United States for fire management and burned area rehabilitation expertise.
“The U.S. has a government-to-government agreement with Australia to provide and receive fire support,” said team member Judy Chetwin, NPS Interpretive Specialist, who worked in the role of public information officer during the fires. “Australia specifically requested help from our National Interagency Coordination Center for various fire support personnel, including a Burned Area Emergency Rehabilitation (BAER) team.”
Because fire management specialists work together to manage wildfires in the U.S., they know one another and have a unique set of skills that enable them to quickly develop wildfire action and recovery plans. Incident Management and BAER team members consider how fire affects a particular environment including the safety of people and cultural sites and environmental issues such as soils, plants, animals and water resources.
In Australia, each American was assigned a specific role. Some worked in regional coordination centers and supported all fires by providing intelligence such as weather reports. Others served as firefighters assigned to suppress fires. Most worked on incident management teams conducting operations, planning and logistics such as transportation, food and lodging to support fire suppression activities.
As a sector commander, Doug supervised four to 10 crews to build and reinforce a section of fire line. He supervised the use of heavy equipment to clear a fire line and worked side-by-side with crew members wielding chainsaws to remove additional vegetation in unburned areas to contain the fire.
“Doug inspired a great deal of camaraderie and inspired confidence with his crews, which quickly built their trust” Judy said. “This is particularly important in an emergency situation where you have to act quickly and there’s not a lot of time to get to know one another well.”
Once his work was complete, Doug had a few days to tour the southern coast of Victoria, including Twelve Apostles National Park. While in Australia, he saw wallabies, kangaroos, koala bears, wombats and a variety of native birds.
Doug’s firefighting career spans 23 fire seasons that include stints with the Service, FS and BLM in a variety of capacities including serving on hotshot crews, which represent some of the top, elite firefighters in the country.
Today, based at North Dakota’s Des Lacs NWR, Doug oversees all aspects of fire management for more than 250,000 acres in North Dakota that encompass several national wildlife refuges and wetland management districts. Doug said managing the wildfire in Australia was similar to his work at home.
“Although the vegetation is different, they manage fire there like we do in the U.S.,” he said. “It was a great experience to work with people from all over Australia and other U.S. agencies. I saw how people across the world manage fire and learned that they share the same frustrations we do. After all, when it comes right down to it, fire is seamless across agencies and many of the issues are the same anywhere in the world.”
-FWS-
