Some local firefighters with the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) are spending their summer fighting wildfires in other parts of the country.
Steven Bekkerus is the Public Information Officer for the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest and he said this week that local crews are returning the favor for teams who came to North Georgia to fight the Rock Mountain fire in the Chattahoochee National Forest in 2016.
"A lot of the teams that helped us came from out west, so we're kind of repaying the favor for them now and sending folks out to help California. We also have folks in Texas and in Oregon right now," Bekkerus said.
A total of 25 personnel assigned to the Chattahoochee-Oconee office have been dispatched to the other states via the Georgia Interagency Coordination Center; three are assigned to the Ferguson fire in the Sierra National Forest in California, according to Bekkerus.
The California wildfires have received the most national attention because there are so many of them (17 at last report) and because they have claimed eight lives, including two firefighters. One of the firefighters who was killed was part of the Ferguson fire operation.
Bekkerus said the mission can be dangerous, and he said the days are long, typically beginning at 6 a.m.
"They'll be working long, hard days - they can be working 12-16 hour days," Bekkerus said.
Bekkerus said the local firefighters may be away from home as long as three weeks, but he said they're glad to do the work.
"There are firefighters from across the country and across the world supporting them, and we need to do our part to support them just liked they supported us in 2016," Bekkerus said. "We're happy to be part of the effort."
