About Rifle Interagency Helitack
The Rifle Interagency Helitack Crew is funded as a 10 person crew, 5 positions
being BLM, the other 5 Forest Service. The crew is based in Rifle, Colorado
at the Garfield County Regional Airport. Located in the Central
Zone of
the Upper Colorado River Interagency Fire Management
Unit, the crew is
a unit resource and provides initial attack and support of large fires
throughout the unit which stretches from the Utah border to the Continental
Divide and encompasses the White River National Forest, the Grand Junction
and Glenwood Springs Field Offices of the BLM, the Colorado National Monument
and parts of the Grand Mesa-Uncompahgre-Gunnison National Forest. Other
resources based in Central Zone include a national Type 1 helicopter, a
SEAT Reload Base, three Type 6 engines and a 5-person initial attack squad.
We contract a light helicopter, and have had a Bell 206 L4 for the last
four years. Next year will start a new contract cycle, and we are hoping
to get an A-Star B-3, however budget constraints may dictate otherwise.
The contract is 90 days in length, and starts on or about June 1st, but
often gets extended depending on local and national fire activity. We usually
stay busy on the local unit with initial attack through June and July,
and generally end up going off-unit to support large fires or provide initial
attack when the monsoons hit. This is usually in late July or early August,
but if the monsoons are light are don’t show up, we may stay on-unit
for the entire contract period. There is usually fuels work outside of
fire season, which can include cutting and thinning projects, pile burning
and prescribed fire implementation.
Our emphasis is initial attack, and when we’re on the home unit,
this is what we do almost exclusively. We also support on-unit extended
attack fires, and provide firefighters and overhead off the crew for
these incidents to the furthest extent possible while still maintaining
initial
attack readiness. We do what we can to get crewmembers out on assignments
and training opportunities such as single resource assignments, hot shot
crew details and Type 2 crew assignments, among others. These opportunities
are usually somewhat limited during June and July as we are normally
busy with IA, but become more likely as the season progresses, especially
if
the helicopter ends up off-unit on a large fire assignment.
