By ROD ZOOK
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Another group of Hutchinson Fire Department personnel are on their way to Idaho to assist in the wildfire efforts there.
Captains Craig Walle and Justin Williams, along with firefighter Matt Young and Kansas Forest Service Employee Brice Haverkamp have arrived in Spokane Washington and will get their first assignments on Wednesday. They are replacing Firefighters Brent Fisher, Cole Ingrham, Jacob Ice and Kyle Graves who left July 15th to help with the fire.
Thursday morning Inghram talked about their experience in Idaho and the role they played.
“What we could offer to them was eyes in the sky so we were able to get up on a peak on a lookout tower...and look down on the fire behavior,” Inghram said. “We watched the weather, gave them observations and the kind of trends on what the fire had been doing.”
While most of the time was spent relaying information or doing spot fire containment they did have to deal with a medical issue with a support group.
“One of their supporting staff didn’t feel well,” Inghram said.
And the help did not come quickly for the patient.
“Out there everything moves a lot slower,” Inghram said. “It's hard to get aircraft or ambulances to an area fast enough to get the patient out.”
A helicopter was called in and the fire crew took time to clear out trees to provide a landing area for the air ambulance.
While the terrain was certainly different that what the Hutchinson Fire Department normally faces, Inghram says they can take what they experience in Idaho and bring it here to Reno County. And it starts with planning ahead.
“That situation or emergency starts on the days we don’t have that situation,” Inghram said. “It’s people sitting at a table talking amongst one another, be it the air medics, be it the fire department, be it the hospitals. So getting a game plan set before the situation happens.”
All three firefighters said they met a lot of unique people that they will remember from now on and noted that fighting a fire in the mountains was a much slower more deliberate task that similar situations Back in Hutchinson.
At last report, the Tumbledown fire has been rolled into what is now called the Stateline Complex fire that consists of 12 individual fires covering 11,350 Acres.
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