You Can Vote To Help The Dutch John Volunteer Fire Department Win Equipment

You Can Vote To Help The Dutch John Volunteer Fire Department Win Equipment

DUTCH JOHN — You can vote to help the Dutch John Volunteer Fire Department win the 2018 Wildfire Community Preparedness Award from the National Fire Protection Association.

All votes must be submitted by Friday, March 2, 2018, by 11:59:59 pm ET.

Click here to support their effort.

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The following is the department’s entry:

Dutch John Fire Department is a small department serving an isolated rural community. We are completely surrounded by federally managed lands, Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area which is administered by the USFS and Rangelands administered by the Bureau of Land Management. The next closest department, in any direction, is over an hour away in any direction.

We would like to promote preparedness of our initial attack by purchasing equipment such as Fire Shelters, Shovels, and other wildland firefighting tools and related Safety equipment.

In July 2002, a few miles upwind of Dutch John, the Mustang Ridge fire was started by a motorist. The fire officially consumed 20,038 acres, which is over 31 square miles. The community was forced to evacuate and was nearly lost as it burned on all sides of our little town. This fire cost $3 million to suppress and could have been quickly extinguished by an effective initial attack.

Please see the article at the link.

The 20,038 acres that burned are now covered with native grass and pose a potentially faster traveling fire then was present 16 years ago. The burnt trees have not been cleaned up, presenting more fuel and possible access issues.

We are in desperate need of tools, safety equipment, training, and supplies to effectively mount an initial attack on wildfires in our area that would adversely affect our community.

Our fire shelters are all outdated or expired and in need of replacement.

We do not have enough Nomex clothing or Boots to equip even half of the members of the department.

We do not have any Rakes, Pulaski’s or Combi-tools in our inventory and only about 6 shovels.

Currently, we are not in a position to mount any kind of initial attack, and definitely not in a safe manner.