Photos, video and article by Cara Staab
On June 26th, the Gila National Forest provided a tour of the Silver City Incident Support Cache and Aerial Fire Base, co-located at the Grant County Airport near Hurley.
Cache Manager Alex Tovar, Assistant Cache Manager Joseph Vega, and Assistant Aerial Fire Base Manager Josh Rascon led members of the Western Institute for Lifelong Learning (WILL) around the facilities, explaining how their crews support federal emergencies across the country. Such emergencies include wildfires, hurricanes, and even once, a space shuttle tragedy. Prescribed fire operations are also supported. Approximately 150 people are employed at the center during the height of fire season.
Vega (L) and Tovar (R) explaining operations to WILL members.
While the cache primarily supplies incidents around the Southwestern US, they also help other caches that might be short on items needed to respond to disasters in their regions. The Silver City cache is one of only a dozen or so federal caches in the nation, and as such, it is vital to the national network.
The cache stockpiles a large variety of items so that they are readily available when an emergency occurs. Chainsaws, firehoses and valves, hand tools, meals ready to eat (MREs), sleeping bags, tents, and office supplies are just a few to mention. Employees also build kits for efficient dissemination of interrelated items, such as those pertaining to medical needs, communications, and helicopter support.
In addition to providing brand new items for emergency response, cache employees also refurbish and clean items returned from previous use. For example, they have sewers to repair fire resistant clothing (which are first washed in El Paso). There are also workers who are proficient in sharpening shovels, pulaskis, and other hand tools. Other more durable supplies, such as coolers, are cleaned for another round of use.
A warehouse full of cache items.
A cache worker cleans and restocks coolers for re-use. A cache worker cleans and restocks coolers for re-use.
The aerial fire base supports aerial firefighting operations, such as water drops, retardant drops, and helitack crews. The base always has 40,000 gallons of fire retardant mixed and ready to load onto aircraft. Literally tons of additional retardant, in its precursor powder form, is stocked in a warehouse for additional demand.
Vega and Rascon beside containers of powdered fire retardant, not yet mixed to slurry.
Rascon manning the pump that will load the aircraft
During the tour, WILL members watched two Single Engine Air Tankers (SEATS) get loaded with, and subsequently drop, water adjacent to the airstrip. This was part of a training exercise regularly performed to keep the pilots and the air base workers proficient in these tasks.
Loading a Single Engine Air Tanker with water for a training exercise.
Video of a water drop adjacent to the runway.
The aerial fire base also hosts helitack crews, which are teams of firefighters who are transported by helicopter to fight fire in remote terrain. Helitack crews are trained to rappel from a hovering helicopter to the ground, where they build firelines using hand tools, chainsaws, and other firefighting tools. During the WILL tour, a crew from the Sierra National Forest of California demonstrated their procedures in a land-based mock training exercise.
Members of the Sierra Helitack Crew prepare for a training exercise
A Sierra Helitack crewmember in a mock rappel.
The Sierra Helitack Crew
For more information on of the Silvery City supply cache and the Gila aerial fire base, call 575-538-5611. For more information on the Western Institute of Lifelong Learning, visit https://will.community/ .
