Statewide Iowa — The Iowa DNR Fire Program has a new group trained and ready to fight wildfires across the country.
Spokesman Ryan Schlater says there are some differences between fighting structure fires and wildfires.
Those who complete the training are emergency hires, part-time firefighters when the US Forest Service calls on them.
He says they had been averaging 50 people a year in the program, but it dropped off during the pandemic and is now coming back. Schlater says one of the goals is to provide new recruits for the permanent fire crews.
He says the alert status is a little higher right now for the Iowa-trained firefighters as many of the full-timers are working up north.
He says emergency hire firefighters aren’t able to go to Canada. Schlater says the wildfire season has started out slow after record amounts of snow and precipitation out west.
The Iowa DNR Fire Program has been sending wildland firefighters to national incidents since 2006.
