The Uintah Basin is always appreciative of the local firefighters as well as those that travel to help battle wildfires. What might not be known is how far some of these firefighters travel. Our local East Fork Fire has almost 290 firefighters helping contain the blaze. Among them is a ten person crew from West Virginia that was assigned by a national fire coordination unit in Idaho. Four of the ten had been part of a crew that aided Colorado with the Pine Gulch Fire. Due to COVID concerns the crew drove in four-wheel drive pickup trucks hauling their own gear and equipment. In an article from the Metro News, a West Virginia multi-media news group, Jeremy Jones with the West Virginia Division of Forestry states that “the area where the guys are now, I would imagine a lot of those resources were bounced over to California for help, so they had to back fill with help from other places, which is us. It actually worked out because with COVID they don’t want to fly our crews out, so they’re having to drive. They would much rather drive to Utah than to Oregon.” We thank all those firefighters that have travelled the distance, work the extremely dangerous job, and spend the extended time away from their families to fight wildfire in the Uintah Basin.
