The Boulder Fire-Rescue Department covers only about 98 square miles of land in and around the city of Boulder. But, more than once a year, Boulder firefighters hop in an engine and head to fires in places such as Idaho, Nebraska, California and even Alaska to help fight fires.

Right now, Boulder has a fire crew working in California’s Shasta-Trinity National Forest, where it has had people since mid-June. Earlier this year, it had a crew — a minimum of three and usually four — in Alaska.

Last year, an engine from Pennsylvania came to Colorado to assist with the Alexander Mountain fire.

Here’s how a community’s local firefighters get tasked with knocking down blazes in states as many as 2,000 miles away — and how it can be free to local fire departments.A national dispatch system

When a fire department in the United States realizes it needs help with a fire, it can ask nearby departments for help.

If that’s not enough, departmental requests get kicked up to a geographical area coordination center, which will look for departments that can help in the region, said Wildland Fire Division Chief Brian Oliver.

If the situation becomes a federal incident, or is simply too big and warrants more help, the National Interagency Fire Center gets involved and can start requesting fire crews from farther away. In the event of a major federal fire emergency in Boulder, requests would go through an NIFC dispatch center in Fort Collins, Oliver said. NIFC can ask departments in other regions for resources.

When the departments in Shasta-Trinity National Forest in Northern California needed assistance covering its routine onslaught of summer fires, the call got kicked up to the NIFC. That request made its way to Boulder, where the department accepted the request, and firefighters who volunteered then hit the road. Firefighters are not required to deploy out of state.

The system works fast, Oliver said, as officials try to get crews on the road to assist in fighting fires.

Within two hours — the expected timelines departments are on for most out-of-state deployments — a Boulder fire engine and four firefighters were on the road to California.

Reciprocity, resource-sharing and free food

Deploying Boulder firefighters to other states’ fires does not cost the city of Boulder a dime, Oliver said.

When Boulder sent one engine to the Palisades fire in Los Angeles for a strike team — five similar fire engines and a supervisor — it didn’t bear the burden of paying firefighters or fixing equipment. The federal government — whichever agency requested assistance, like the National Forest Service — reimburses Boulder, and other cities and towns across the country, for work in other jurisdictions, Oliver said.

Firefighters even get paid their normal overtime rate, and not a special federal rate, for the entire time they’re on the job. 24 hours a day. Every day.

Food, which can mean catered meals to tend to regulations around firefighters’ caloric intake, is covered, too. Housing — which is often tents on the ground — is also a covered expense.

While that does mean that Boulderites pay for these expenses with their federal tax dollars, it’s a two-way street. When the Boulder area or Colorado needs help with a fire, folks from far and wide may be deployed to assist.

The system is built on “reciprocity,” Oliver said.

“When we have a big fire here and we start ordering things, we’re a part of that system,” Oliver said. “Fire season: It’s not even a season, it’s year-round, and it moves geographically. If it’s not burning here, it’s probably burning somewhere else.”

But costs are not the only way a department could be impacted. When Boulder sends firefighters out of state, those same people become unavailable to help protect Boulder for at least two weeks, plus rest, Oliver said.

That does not mean Boulder is worse off compared to when all of its firefighters are in the city, Oliver said.

“Sending stuff out is predicated on fire danger here,” Oliver said. “If things are hot and dry and we’re expecting, you know, extreme fire behavior … we keep all our stuff here.”

Even without the extra-jurisdictional deployments, fire departments staff many firefighters. Boulder has about 130 uniformed firefighters, Oliver said, and the department requires only 24 people to be on shift at a given time.

That means Boulder builds redundancy into its staffing, so it won’t ever be short on the required number of firefighters for a given shift.

In that built-in buffer, firefighters off their shift who volunteer to head out on deployments can then do so without worrying about strapping Boulder with a burden too heavy for it to bear.

Plus, Boulder only sends out one engine at a time in almost every deployment. Oliver said he could not remember the last time the department sent two engines to a fire in a different state.

Where Boulder firefighters are right now

Boulder has a fire crew in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest right now. That means four people and one of the city’s own engines.

The department has had people conducting “a cover” for the departments in Northern California for two months. That means Boulder isn’t fighting a major fire like the Palisades fire, but is helping tend to the many calls the area gets in the dry, summer months.

Every two weeks, the crew of four gets sent home, and a new team heads over, per federal regulations.

That’s true not just for relatively simple cover deployments, but also for major response assists. In January, Boulder sent one engine for a strike team to the Palisades fire. The department had rotated firefighters every half-month from that major fire, too.

Every year, the city sends firefighters on an average of two or three deployments outside of Boulder. Already this year, Boulder has had people in Los Angeles, still has people in California and even sent a crew to Central, Alaska.

Kerry Webster, a firefighter for 22 years who has been with the Boulder Fire Rescue Wildland Division for the past two years, said getting to go fight fires in new and interesting places can be fun and an opportunity to learn different techniques. When Webster — who has fought fires in Montana, Nevada, Arizona, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington, and other states — got to go to Alaska, it was the chance some firefighters yearn for, she said.

“It’s kind of one of those experiences that people sometimes wait a whole career to get to do,” she said.

When Webster went to Virginia, expecting to fight fires that never came, she learned how departments out east use leaf blowers for some parts of fire response. When she was deployed to Washington to fight fires around Lake Chelan, she learned how rural Washington might use boats to transport fire crews and equipment to and from places they need to be.

It’s a rewarding experience, she said.

“No matter what kind of fire you’re on, whether it’s a grass fire in South Dakota, whether it’s a tundra in Alaska, or the black spruce forests, everything is a team effort,” Webster said.

Oliver says so, too. When he was a young firefighter deployed to Utah, “it felt like a camping trip” with his friends, he said. After fighting fires, he got to hang out with his friends and eat free dinner. But he also gained experience that he may not have been able to gain had he not deployed elsewhere.

That experience helps firefighters get invaluable real-world experience early in their careers, Oliver said.

“It is basically the best training I can provide them, and it’s essentially free,” Oliver said.

The difficulty for families, and how the department takes care of itself

Even though a trip elsewhere to fight fires can be fun, it’s not always all hunky dory.

During the Big Elk Fire south of Estes Park in 2002, one of Boulder’s firefighters witnessed a fatal helicopter crash, Oliver said. Fighting the 2021 Marshall Fire — which burned over 6,000 acres and as many as 1,000 homes — had “ugliness to it,” he added. Crews from other states came to Colorado to help fight the Marshall fire.

When Webster fought the 2020 Pine Gulch fire in Mesa and Garfield Counties, there came a moment when supervising officials told firefighters to stop using flame retardant: it had become ineffective.

“Coming back from that took a little while to get over,” Webster said. “To see fire behavior burn like that was impactful.”

It can be hard on firefighters’ families, too, Webster said.

Early September is prime fire season, she said, and her father’s birthday is also in September. She’s had to miss birthdays so she can go and fight fires.

Oliver said sending people to fires can be scary, too.

“It’s a struggle, and I know folks that are not accustomed to that lifestyle,” he said. “There’s the fear of the unknown. … You’re probably not calling every night and checking in. You just disappear for a while, and they hope you come back.”

Firefighters’ families get support from others in the department, though, he said. When a spouse needs someone to “pick up a kid from school or mow the lawn or move a couch,” they can call, and Boulder firefighters will help out, Oliver said.