Aurora, CO Brush Fire 5/2/14

[Guest]

With Colorado's wildfire history I was surprised to see so much structural firefighting gear on a fire this size. I thought maybe the time of season / green grass had lulled the initial response.

 

Thanks for your answer, sounds like an individual department issue rather than a larger mindset.

 

 

Earlier in my career I've had the misfortune to fight some brush fires in structural turnout gear, talk about the wrong tool for the job. Pretty miserable even on a small grass fire.

 

I hear ya, nothing worse than structural PPE on a wildland incident.  We have a few departments that cover mostly urban / suburban areas and don't have regular vegetation fires that one engine can't access or handle solo.  Those departments are the ones that don't issue wildland PPE, have single jacket wildland hose or progressive lays etc. 

 

There are other departments who boarder them that have a more significant wildland problem and send the world when a legit vegetation fire comes in.  We just did a historic strike team drill over the weekend and our I-25 cooridor departments are becoming much better and mutual aid and wildland I/A.  During the Waldo Canyon Fire a strike team of Type 1 Engine's from Denver was one of the first to arrive in Colorado Springs 2 hours away to help with the interface conflagration.