Firefighter town created in hours

TEN SLEEP – Hours after the Rocky Mountain Incident Management Team Black assumed command of the Hatchery Fire, on Sunday, a firefighter town was created to house the 281 fire personnel, at the Ten Sleep Rodeo grounds. The firefighter town has everything that a firefighter might need from supplies to food to showers.

Thanks to community members, rodeo management, Ten Sleep school administrators and many other entities the firefighters have a home-away-from-home at the rodeo grounds and administrative offices at the Ten Sleep School while fighting the Hatchery Fire, which is located about seven miles east of Ten Sleep

"It's wonderful to be so close to a town that has the ability to provide an area for us, a lot of times we are not close to a town and its 20 – 30 miles just to get gas," Rocky Mountain Incident Management Team Black Information Officer-in-training Corey Murzyn said.

The firefighter town has a mess hall that brings to mind the mess hall from the classic TV show 'MASH' and a food truck to provide all the nutritional needs for the firefighters with 232 breakfasts served Monday morning. "The firefighters' meals, every meal has more than 2,500 calories. We give them a lot of food, many have commented about the amount of food that we provided but with the effort that they put forth they need those calories, we don't want them losing weight fighting a fire," Houston's Wild Land Fire Support employee Jessica Noel stated. The Houston's Wild land Fire Support is a company based out of Phoenix, Ariz., that caters meals for firefighters all across the country.

"We cater for the huge events, exclusively for fires across the country," Noel added.

Before the firefighter town was erected, the Ten Sleep Saloon/ Crazy Woman Café provided breakfast and dinner for the firefighters.

Firefighters don't have to worry about personal hygiene in the firefighter town. A hand washing station is provided beside the food truck and a shower trailer is also provided along with restrooms stationed throughout the town.

"One place that we were stationed we couldn't get the shower trailer to our base so we had to use tarps for shower stalls," Rocky Mountain Incident Management Team Black Information Office-in-training Lynn Lockwood said.

Three air-conditioned office unit trailers, rented from Stallion Oilfield Services provide a medical facility and logistics facilities where firefighters meet every morning for a briefing on the plans for the day.

The logistics section is in charge of the creation of the firefighter town with the logistics chief supervising the entire process. "The supply unit orders equipment and people. Ground support takes care of what's needed to get meals to the firefighters, oversees water tenders and anything that has an engine. The facilities unit is like the landlord, they are in charge of the layout of the camp, how much acreage is needed, the port-a-potties, showers and bringing in the generators. The communications unit makes sure that radio frequencies reach into all the nooks and crannies of the fire. The food unit works with the kitchen, meal count, orders for ice, water and Gatorade. We also have two camp crews, that while they don't fight the fire, without them none of this would be able to happen," Rocky Mountain Incident Management Team Black Logistics section chief Kathy Porter said. "Everyone knows their jobs so everything usually goes together pretty quickly, usually within 12 hours," she added.

The logistics section is the first in and the last to leave the area. "We make sure that when we leave an area that the area is the same as it was before we arrived," Porter stated. "We turn the lights out and shut the door," she added.

The Blackfeet camp crew from Montana came to run the supply area, where everything that a firefighter might need can be obtained from gloves to sleeping bags to shovels and hoses. Firefighters just need to fill out a form requesting what they need.

Many firefighters in the firefighter town are from many different parts of the country. These firefighters will travel the U.S. fighting fires until they have reached their yearly hour limit. "Firefighters need a certain amount of rest time. They are only allowed a certain amount of hours yearly that they can fight fires so toward the end of the fire season we sometimes have to fly firefighters in from other countries," Murzyn said.

The town of Ten Sleep is grateful for all the assistance they have received in fighting this fire, which was evident at the community meeting in the Ten Sleep School gymnasium Sunday evening, when during the question and answer period the community was more concerned with the firefighters needs being met and offering thanks.