COLUMBUS, OH -- Two, 20-person crews of Ohio firefighters are being dispatched to northeastern Nevada as part of a multi-state team mobilized to help suppress major forest fires in the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's Elko District, according to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR).
At the request of the U.S. Forest Service, the Ohio Interagency Fire Crew will leave Columbus this afternoon for a staging area in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. On Tuesday, they will join other crews from New Jersey, Maryland and Pennsylvania on a charter flight to Elko, Nevada. The crews will remain in Nevada for two weeks.
The U.S. Forest Service requested the Ohio crews' support after more than 22 large fires broke out in Nevada on Sunday as a result of lightning storms. The forest service defines a large fire as one that is more than 300 acres. The Coyote Creek fire currently encompasses 4,000 acres and is located 25 miles east of Carlin, Nevada.
The Ohio crew includes 20 ODNR employees, five employees from the National Park Service, two from the Wayne National Forest and 13 volunteer firefighters not affiliated with a state or federal agency.
"Under our agreement with the U.S. Forest Service, ODNR and other government agencies in Ohio stand ready to share firefighting resources with other jurisdictions in the United States, Canada and Mexico," said Mike Bowden, fire training coordinator with the ODNR Division of Forestry. "All personnel costs and other expenses are reimbursed by the federal government," Bowden said.
In recent years, Ohio crews have been assigned to fight fires in Montana, Florida, California, Oregon and Washington.