Wyoming State Forestry hosted their annual wildland fire training again this year at Camp Guernsey Joint Training Center, in Guernsey, Wyoming. They cleverly call it WYOFIRE, which comes from “Wyoming Fire Incident Readiness Exercise”. The objectives are to train and qualify wildland firefighters in Incident Command System positions and to provide the opportunity for firefighters to familiarize themselves with the processes of reporting to incidents, actions while at incidents, and how to properly demobilize.
This year there were about 200 registered for the May 16 through 18 event. We visited on May 17 and observed live fire training by personnel from Rochford FD (South Dakota), Camp Guernsey FD (Wyoming), and Big Laramie Valley VFD (Woming).
All of the photos were taken by Bill Gabbert for Wildfire Today.
This premier exercise was an outstanding opportunity for all firefighters to stregthen their skills in protection of life,propperty and natural resources. Safety is something we all strive to follow fighting wildland fires. Coming together at WyoFire develops trust, comradery and enhances team work when we come together serving the public on the fireline. Thank you State Forestry and Camp Guernsey for making this exercise possible.
We are training more and more on injuries. Back up plans for back up plans. We will never forget Andy Palmer. Good points Cap.
We will be doing a similar training in Montana in a few weeks called CAT Camp, put on by the State type three IMT. Was a lot of fun last year.
Gets the cobwebs out for sure!
I can’t say enough about the WYOFIRE training. Not only does it allow for new firefighters to learn from a live fire event but it also gives the more experienced guys/gals a chance to “knock the dust off” before our fire season starts. The Cadre holds some of the most experienced folks from the Rocky Mt. region. I’ve never seen more task book’s in my life as I did during this event. It’s an absolute “must do” for anyone. Funny, one of the pictures you have showing the simulated injury, I was the Task Force trainee on the hot seat during that exercise. That simulation was something we should be doing much more of. We all have it in us to take care of our Brothers/ Sisters. Next time you have a training, dig out your IRPG and train for the worst case scenario. Ours was a chainsaw injury. Hey it could happen!………at ANY time.