Commissioners talk fire plan, arson dog

The Carbon County Commissioners approved the annual wildland fire management plan last week, allowing the county’s fire department to cooperate with other agencies in the area when responding to wildland fires.

Fire Warden John Rutherford said the agreement is between federal, state and county firefighting agencies.

“It’s how we conduct business,” he said.

The agreement is beneficial to Carbon County as it stipulates that each agency absorbs its own costs while fighting a fire. While the county has several trucks, it doesn’t have the aerial resources available to the Bureau of Land Management and other federal agencies. Rutherford said those aerial resources are being used more to keep wildland fires small.  He said they can also start attacking fires much more quickly and more aggressively.

“Way more aggressively,” he said. “We’re really good in the lower elevations, but you get into the mid-level and higher elevations, we struggle a little bit.”

Following the plan’s approval, Rutherford also spoke about taking the county’s arson K-9 to recertification training.

“The K-9 did quite well,” he said. “She’s recertified and she came through it like a star.”

The dog is trained to seek out the scent of materials like gasoline and other hydrocarbons used to intentionally start blazes. Overall, there were 24 dogs at the training. Rutherford said some of the other dogs at the training struggled to meet the expectations placed on them, however Carbon County’s dog wasn’t one of them.

With the arson K-9, Rutherford said he’s seeing fire investigations being conducted in the state, but his department’s dog hasn’t been called to assist in those investigations. He said there has been a change in management at the state fire marshal’s office and isn’t sure if that’s the reason or if agencies simply are not aware the dog is available to assist arson investigations.

“Having an asset like that that’s not being utilized is not desirable,” Rutherford said. “The dog can help fire investigators do work that would take an investigator hours.”

Rutherford said he is raising awareness of the dog’s abilities throughout the state, reaching out to fire chiefs across the state and the state fire marshal’s office. He hopes the dog will be included as part of the automatic dispatch when questionable fires are reported.