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Unified Fire Authority Wildland Bureau (July 1, 2004 - Present)

  Salt Lake County Fire Department Wildland Division (1971 - June 30, 2004)

“In 1988, as fires scorched nearly 1.2 million acres in Yellowstone National Park, a smaller fire threatened Salt Lake County’s Emigration Canyon. As county firefighters scrambled to protect structures, a Type I Incident Management Team was ordered through the Salt Lake Interagency Fire Center. The wildland firefighters, using strategies and tactics that differed from thosecommonly found in structure firefighting, were able to extinguish the fire, but not before it consumed some 5500 acres. Salt Lake County Fire Department chief officers were impressed with the professional, effective manner in which the Incident Management Team dealt with the fire. As a result of the Emigration Canyon fire, the Salt Lake County Fire Department Wildland Division was born. It was determined that a Salt Lake County Fire Department wildland hand crew could have made a difference in the way the county battled the fire. Perhaps the fire would have been controlled sooner, thus reducing costs, resources, and time spent on the incident. For this reason, and others, the fire department chiefs and county commissioners funded and created the wildland division within the fire department.

In 1992, then Chief Larry Hinman and Assistant Chief Jeff Maxfield authorized the hiring of 16 seasonal employees under the direction of Duane Park, a county firefighter. Park trained the crew in wildland firefighting tactics and safety with assistance from The State of Utah and the United States Forest Service. In the first season, career firefighters filled the crew boss positions in 8-hour shifts before returning to their regular duty stations. The crew was restricted to fires during the day in Salt Lake County only. The next year, the crew operated two brush engines out of an old county fire station, patrolling both sides of the valley, clearing brush, and educating county residents about issues involved with wildland fire and urban-interface. In 1994, the wildland crew expanded to include three 10-person crews aligned with the county’s platoon schedule. Some restrictions were lifted and that summer the crew went on its first out-of-county wildland fire. The inexperienced crew was used mainly for mop-up, but a precedent was set as the Salt Lake County Wildland Division evolved from a local resource into a regional one.

In 1995, leadership and organization were the focus. Three captains were sent to California to tour the Los Angeles County Fire Department wildland program and the most capable wildland crewmembers were identified as squad bosses and put through a 12-week firefighter recruit camp. By 1996, the wildland division consisted of two standard 20-person handcrews and traveled more extensively throughout the Great Basin region. Between the 1996 and 1997 seasons, the county outfitted the crew with three new 10-person crew carriers, line packs, hand tools, chain saws, and other wildland firefighting equipment. In 2000, the crews were used extensively during the record-breaking fire season under the supervision of Captain Mike Watson and Captain Wayne Rogers. In 2003, Matt Burchett and Anthony Widdison became the first promoted to the newly created position of Wildland Specialist. Prior to this, several department members acted in as temporary wildland specialists. It is now an official position.

Now the crews spend the vast majority of their time out of the county as an interagency national wildland firefighting resource. Instead of mopping up on one or two fires each summer, Salt Lake County wildland firefighters logged nearly 1500 hours of work o nearly 50 fires in 2003. The workload was divided between two handcrews and single resource assignments. The Wildland Divison’s capabilities include initial attack incident commanders, helicopter crewmembers, advanced fallers (sawyers), crew bosses, engine bosses, strike team, and task force leaders. In addition to battling fires from the west coast to Utah, Idaho to Wyoming, the Wildland Division sent a group to Texas in the winter of 2003 to assist in space shuttle Columbia recovery operations.

But the division remains true to its roots. Under the direction of Park, who is now Assistant Chief, the crews spent nearly 1000 man-hours creating defensible space around homes in Emigration Canyon, a nationally recognized Firewise Community, and assisted in controlling a 15 acre fire at the mouth of the canyon. As residents of the Western United States (and Salt Lake County Specifically) learn to live with wildland fire, the Fire Department’s Wildand Division continues to be a valuable local and national fire and emergency resource.”  (From The Salt Lake County Fire Department 1921-2004: The History and the People )

On July 1, 2004 the Salt Lake County Fire Department became the newly created Unified Fire Authority (UFA) in order to provide fire and emergency medical services to the unincorporated county and its contract cities. The UFA Wildland Division continued to grow as well during the summer of 2005. In addition to the two hand-crews, the UFA staffed one type VI wildland engine and a type II, 3000 gallon, water tender. In the command structure, Assistant Chief Park stepped aside and Assistant Chief Collins took over the command reigns of the Wildland Division, which is run now out of the Unified Fire Authority’s Training Center in Magna, Utah.