ODF’s South Fork Forest Camp plowed new ground hosting a two-week Fire School last month to prepare for this year’s fire season. Traditionally, South Fork has held a one-week fire school to train up to 200 inmates so they can become certified wild land fire fighters and assist with Northwest Oregon Area and statewide fire suppression efforts. The two week fire school concept came about as an attempt to improve the quality of training – reducing class by training half the inmates each week, letting the other half continue their regular project work on State Forest Lands.
Training included class time and learning stations for pumps, hoses, mop up, fire shelters and line construction. In addition to training 210 inmates from South Fork Forest Camp and the Mill Creek Facility in Salem, crew bosses, safety officers, food unit leaders, corrections kitchen coordinators and inmate kitchen crew also received training.
The ODF and Department of Corrections staff at South Fork Camp worked collaboratively to pull off a very successful fire school, highlighting the important cooperative relationship between the two agencies in wild land fire suppression readiness.