NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON — Hutchinson Fire Chief Steve Beer is changing his tactics toward wildfires after seeing what has happened this fire season on red flag warning days.
"We're going to put a whole firing team together with a firing boss," Beer said Tuesday. "What does that actually mean? I'm going to have a group of three to four firefighters that their sole job is, and I'll probably put them on overtime to come in on those days, probably like ten days a year that we're into that situation. Their sole job is to get in front of the fire, a mile or two ahead of it. They're going to start burnout operations right away in front of this thing, while all the other companies will do structure protection and work on mitigating the fire. We want the fire to run into a big black section that's already burnt out."
It's a completely different approach than the department took as soon as five years ago.
"When I got to Hutch here in 2017 and Capt. Mueller can attest to this, we hardly ever fought fire with fire," Beer said. "We hardly ever grabbed a drip torch and laid fire on the ground. It sounds easy when it's a day like today with five to ten mile an hour winds, but you throw the Kansas winds in there at 40 to 50 miles an hour and lay fire down on the ground, you can win some and you can lose some real fast. By the people that we have going out to the western states and getting experience and coming back here, that has been priceless for HFD and the City of Hutchinson."
Wildfires are going to continue to be a way of life. There's just no other way to look at it, in Beer's estimation.
"This problem is not going to go away today," Beer said. "It's not going to go away in the next ten years, probably not in the next twenty years. We're always going to be dealing with this type of situation in and around Hutch. For the people that are born and raised here, councilman Fast, we've had this discussion, you don't remember the fires as severe back in the day, but if you remember back in the day 40 to 50 years ago, these fields were all for cattle and now they are all grazed off."
Beer notes that the cedar trees are stealing moisture from the grass and keeping it dry and also if a cedar goes up, it's just like a can of diesel fuel to the fire.
"I cannot guarantee you that it won't happen again," Beer said. "I can guarantee you that we have to do a better job for the men and women of Hutch Fire, what they do on a daily basis for this community. They are putting their lives on the line each and every day we respond to these calls. All you have to do is look at the back of Brush 41 that's burnt up and you'll understand some of the tough situations these men and women were in here in the last week."
In fact, Beer said the fire still is not 100 percent contained, though he hopes that can happen in the next couple of days.