By Greg Kendall-Ball
Abilene Reporter-News
MERKEL, Texas — This time last year the Texas Forest Service offices in Merkel were bursting at the seams as dozens, if not hundreds, of firefighters from across the country filed through the Texas Lone Star Incident Management Team’s command post.
Now, the halls are mostly empty as the only occupants are a 14-person TFS task force that’s permanently based there.
Because of the diminished threat of wildfires, the incident command post officially “stood down” in early April.
“Our firefighting staff hasn’t changed, but a lot of the command and general staff - the incident commander, planning and logistics, and so on - those folks have been released and gone home,” said Rhea Cooper, assistant chief of the Northwest Branch.
The Northwest Branch is one of the forest services’ seven geographic divisions. It is made up of 71 counties, including Taylor, and stretches from the top of the Texas Panhandle to Comanche County in the southeast and Yoakum County in the southwest.
Ten of the 14 TFS personnel in Merkel are firefighters.
Officials constantly monitor weather conditions and continue to preposition personnel and equipment where they might be needed.
Cooper said regional fire coordinators in Abilene, Canyon, Childress, Lubbock and Wichita Falls are in constant contact with local fire departments. “When we are called to a fire, we are able to respond with our own resources — people and equipment — because the activity is not widespread and the fires we are seeing are small and we’re generally able to suppress them within a day.” She also spoke about potential fire danger. “The RFCs stay in touch with the local guys, and they relay that info back here. That way, if we need to send some of our task force, maybe some engines or dozers up there way, we can do it,” Cooper said.
April Saginor, TFS spokeswoman, said the decision was made to temporarily disband the command post because of the current fire conditions.
“Basically, the activity is such right now that local fire departments are able to handle fire suppression without Texas Forest Service assistance,” Saginor said.
Cooper said that while fire activity is low, forest service firefighters spend their time maintaining equipment, transporting equipment to various fire departments across the state, and in training.
“We also maintain contact with the volunteer fire departments in our area to provide them with the training and equipment they need. The VFDs are always the first line of attack when it comes to wildfires and a lot of our work is supporting them,” he said.
Despite low fire danger, a few weeks of hot, dry weather could change the outlook dramatically, Saginor said.
“We are constantly monitoring weather patterns, drought indices and fire activity to determine whether there may be a need to call in additional resources and ‘stand up’ (the command post) again,” she said. “We just aren’t seeing activity right now that would support that.”
Copyright 2012 Abilene Reporter-News