National Fire Plan Success Story
Cooperating Departments Benefit from RFA
Shenandoah National Park, Virginia
National Fire Plan - Community Assistance
2009
Thanks to RFA, at least four departments near Shenandoah NP now have leaf blowers to help create fire breaks or fireline. The tool can be effective in the east where downed broad leaves are common fuels. Here a firefighter creates fireline to keep a fire from spreading out of the park onto private lands in 2007.
Rural Fire Assistance provided over $30,000 of equipment to departments that respond to wildland fire along with Shenandoah National Park. In 2008 and 2009, RFA funds bought radios, protective clothing, fire shelters, chainsaws and other tools that work well on rocky, leafy terrain. Crozet Volunteer Fire Department (VFD), Dyke VFD, Grottoes VFD, Luray VFD, Shenandoah VFD, Sperryville VFD, Stanardsville VFD and Stanley VFD, Dooms and Madison County Volunteer Fire Companies, Inc., and Washington Volunteer Fire and Rescue, Inc. all received assistance.
While the most important firefighter safety tool is the brain, appropriate gear and tools for the job come in very handy. Structural and wildland fire are different in many ways, so the equipment, tools, and tactics are different. The primary purpose of the Rural Fire Assistance program is to increase wildland firefighter safety and wildland fire protection capabilities for rural fire departments. These are departments that protect communities of fewer than 10,000 people and which play a cooperative role in providing protection to federal lands such as Shenandoah National Park.
Contact: Barb Stewart, Fire Communication Specialist, Northeast and National Capital Regions, (434) 220-9065.