FIRE MANAGEMENT PROGRAM:
Program Contacts:
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Steve Gobat |
(703) 440-1535 |
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Bruce Dawson |
(601) 977-5400 |
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Singh Ahuja |
(414) 297-4429 |
BLM administers very few scattered parcels of
surface land in the East, and there have been no reported fires on BLM-administered
lands in the East.
Through discussions between the International Association of Black Professional
Firefighters and BLM, a wildland firefighting crew has been established in the Jackson
Field Office in Jackson, Mississippi, to fill a national and regional need. The Crew
serves to increase minority recruitment in the Bureau’s Fire Program. The Jackson Interagency Hotshot Crew
(IHC), an elite wildland fire fighting crew, is one of only 65 Hotshot crews designated in the United States
and one of six crews sponsored by the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management.
BLM-Eastern States Fire Management program has four basic components, which include: 1) Administrative
support of the Jackson IHC, which is the only Type I BLM administered crew east of the Mississippi River;
2) Implementation of the National Fire Plan Strategy by providing a management framework in which Eastern
States’ employees, who may participate in BLM’s Fire Management program, obtain training in wild land fire
suppression skills; 3) Works with other Federal, State, and local agencies to promote fire fighter safety and
survivablity by supporting development of a regional fire training facility in Mississippi; and 4) Development of
an Eastern States’ fire/emergency mobilization guide for the training and dispatch of individual resources and
skills within Eastern States.
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