Keith Murphy, fire management specialist with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, explains the agency’s Upper Peninsula Fire Dispatch Map at the DNR’s Incident Coordination Center in Harvey. Firefighting equipment also is kept at the center. (Journal photo by Christie Mastric)

HARVEY — Michigan Department of Natural Resources firefighters are preparing for the upcoming fire season using a variety of methods and equipment.

Keith Murphy, DNR fire management specialist, explained on Tuesday at the agency’s Incident Coordination Center, or ICC, in Harvey, the ways that the DNR handles fire outbreaks in the region. He switches duty officer activities with Celeste Chingwa, the resource protection manager who is in charge of the entire Upper Peninsula.

The center, Murphy said, has two consoles that can be used for individuals to talk across the state of Michigan.

That was the case with the recent Blue Lakes Fire, which broke out in Montmorency and Cheboygan counties in the northern Lower Peninsula last week following a lightning strike that smoldered for several days, igniting nearby fuels such as leaves and brush, according to a DNR news release.

“We could talk back and forth to the Lower Peninsula,” Murphy said.

Equipment that was used included four engines, one tractor plow and five utility terrain vehicles with water, said the DNR, which continues to identify and mop up hot spots within the 2,516-acre fire.

An Upper Peninsula Fire Dispatch map is located in the ICC, a tool the DNR uses to handle firefighting strategies.

“We call it the puzzle palace because we just move puzzle pieces around here,” Murphy said.

Each magnet, he noted, represents a piece of equipment, with red magnets representing fires. Also, staffing sheets are received daily from the fire supervisors at each unit, which is noted on the map.

“For instance, for Gwinn we have two engines staff and a tractor plow, and then a fire supervisor there,” Murphy said.

When staff gets called to a fire downstate, for example, resources have to be shifted from places without fires.

“Just looking from here, there’s nothing but two pieces of equipment in Seney for the entire east U.P.,” Murphy said. “Then we’ll start moving.”

That’s when the map comes in handy.

“It’s pretty simple, but when you stand back and look at it, you can see your gaps right away,” Murphy said.

Detection aircraft are dispatched to their respective zones where they will fly loops or, as was the case on Tuesday, perform waterfall surveys.

“Our airplanes, our pilots, do all kinds of stuff, not just fire,” he said.

Pre-determined response plans are in place for high-hazard sites such as jack pine fields and wildland interfaces, such as at K.I. Sawyer and Gwinn, Murphy said.

“If a fire would drop in there, we’d call a zone dispatch for the Sands Plains, and then all kinds of equipment comes in from surrounding area,” Murphy said. “We don’t have to have start calling people to get them there. They automatically respond.”

Murphy said the agency tries to perform advanced training in the winter, with equipment getting readied in February in March.

“Dependent on the snow loads, we try and have everything ready by March 15 because they could go anywhere in the state,” he said. “If it’s a normal year, the southern Lower (Peninsula) melts faster and quicker, sooner, so then we’ll shift our resources down there and do a bunch of scrap burning.”

When snow melts in that region, resources are shifted to the Northern Lower Peninsula, he said.

Usually each March, staff trains in required duties such as radio communications and fire-shelter training, with watch-out situations and standard fire orders developed from problem fires examined each year, he said.

“There’s always a twist to each refresher each year to kind of keep it fresh, so they come up with what they learned in past fires, the year prior, or different new trainings on new pumps out there,” Murphy said. “Or if we get a new piece of equipment, there’s new training on that. They go through all the equipment to make sure they know how to start everything up, to make sure if there’s a bad pump from a field problem or a spark plug problem, for instance, they know how to change that.”

The ICC is home to vehicles such as a skidgeon, which has a plow that creates a fire break, and a trailer — which an incident management team will use — that has radios and dry-erase walls.

Although the DNR handles wildfires, individuals can play their part to keep fires from occurring.

Regardless of whether people are near a wildfire, the DNR suggests people keep safety in mind. Before any burning, they should visit Michigan.gov/BurnPermit and get fire safety tips at Michigan.gov/PreventWildfires.

Christie Mastric can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 250. Her email address is cbleck@miningjournal.net.