Firefighters at the U.S. Army’s sprawling Yakima Training Center know wildland fire.
Out amid the center’s often bone-dry sage brush and cheat grass, the civilian department handles scores of range fires each year, including those sparked by live ammunition or hot exhaust from military vehicles.
When not on wildland fires, they often help Yakima Valley firefighters on both house and range fires.
It’s a department willing and able to help when big fires break out in Central Washington.
But federal fire officials don’t call when there’s a major fire.
Turns out the department isn’t listed on the national wildland firefighter database. As a result the department is not recognized when federal firefighting authorities take control of a fire. In fact, they’ve actually been turned away from a fire at least once.
That’s what happened back in 2013 at a rangeland fire burning off State Route 24 roughly 30 miles east of Yakima. When a federally recognized incident command team took over — which typically happens in large fires — the Training Center firefighters were told to return home.