Firefighters from the Florida Forest Service in Flagler County are helping battle wildfires out west to help other areas in need.
- 100 FFS members deployed to CO, UT, WY, CA
- 10 of them from Bunnell district
For 18 days on his first trip out of Florida, Jeff Fountain dealt with a lot of smoke and flames.
"It was a big eye opener -- I've never traveled in my life," said Fountain.
Fountain was deployed all the way to Utah to battle wildfires, working with a crew of 19 other on the deployment, sometimes at very high elevations.
"We traveled to almost 9,000 feet -- it was very very difficult," he said.
A hundred Florida Forest Service members like Fountain are helping out in several other western states, including Colorado, Wyoming, California.
"It was constant," said Fountain. "I mean, every 19-20 minutes you get a push of 60 miles per hour winds through there, it burns so fast and so long."
Fountain showed some of the tools they used to battle the fires out west, which he said are much different than the tools they use in the East, to students at the Imagine School on Aug 22. He said they climb steep mountains and they have to clear out fire lines by hand instead of using a bulldozer.
"Out west with the mountains and the terrain, they can't use a dozer," said Fountain.
"[Fountain's] first opportunity to get out into the community he came here, to the Imagine School, to talk to the kids about firefighter safety, the importance of their job and what they do on a day-to-day basis, not only in our own communities, but other communities around the U.S.," said Julie Allen, Fire Mitigation specialist.
"We don't try to think of the dangers," said Fountain. "It's there, it's always in the back of our minds because safety's first. That's our big goal is to always be safe and come home, [and] the fires are so fast and Mother Nature is so unpredictable."
Ten of the 100 firefighters deployed are from the Bunnell district of the Florida Forest Service in Flagler County.