DHFD wild land firefighters return from Gladiator Fire

Monday, its size was estimated at 16,240 acres and officials reported it is 50 percent contained.

The five local firefighters were deployed May 19 and reported to Crown King for assignment.

DH Fire Lt. David Collings, who was the wild land crew’s engine boss, said Monday he and the others were assigned to protect communication towers near Mayer on a ridge referred to as Mayflower Ridge.

Mayer is a community situated northwest of Phoenix and southwest of Prescott.

The DH firefighters included Collings, Timothy Garrett and Nick Ryan — all aboard a Type 6 brush truck; and Bryan Talavera and Jeff Stancil — who were aboard a water tender tanker truck.

The truck is equipped for quick access and quick attack of brush fires, Collings said.

The water tender truck returned to Desert Hills Thursday. And the brush truck returned on Saturday, Collings said.

“We went to Crown King for a briefing,” Collings said Monday. “Then we were on the ridge top to protect the communication towers for a couple days.”

Collings said the crews secured the ridge top as a safe zone and camped there. Despite being stationed beneath the cell towers, the crew had no cellphone service, he said.

The crews camped out in tents on the ridge, and ate cold cereal for breakfast, sack lunches and hot dinners.

The elevation of Mayflower Ridge is 7,500 feet, he said.

During the tour, Collings and his crew protected some cabins and fell some dead trees around the cabin. When the trees burn at the bottom, they become weak and could potentially blow over in the wind, Collings said.

Other duties included providing back up for the hot shot crews.

“We backed up hot shot crews for back burning,” Collings said. “We monitor spot fires in case the winds turned and blew embers over the fire break, the dozer line.”

The back burning efforts allows hot shot crews to somewhat control the direction of a fire bringing it to a stop, or containment, at the fire break line.

Collings said his crew twice had to knock down fires started from embers crossing the line.

“That’s the most work that we did,” he said. “Those (hot shot crew) guys are the best of the best. And we protected them while they did it.”

At the ridge, Collings described the surroundings as “pretty black” because the fire already had made its way through. He also said some structures were lost in the area, too.

“The fire moved through there really fast,” he said. “The complexity of the forest was real thick.”

Collings is the current wild land division supervisor for Desert Hills Fire Department. In all, there are about 20 wild land-certified firefighters in their ranks, he said. Collings’ wild land certifications correspond with National Wildland Coordinating Group, or NWCG. The level has deployed him to fight wild land fires in states including Montana, California, Utah and Nevada.

According to Inciweb.org, the Gladiator Fire costs are estimated at $13 million. It has so far destroyed six structures. Also, eight injuries are associated with the fire.

You may contact the reporter at jhanson@havasunews.com.