Wyoming State Forestry unveiled the newest resource for fighting fires in Wyoming: a helibase in Casper. It will act as a central location for some of Wyoming's aircraft that are critical to responding to wildfires. Wyoming Public Radio's environment reporter, Teal Davis, went to the ribbon-cutting ceremony last month.
Editor's Note: This story has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Nicky Ouellet: So Teal, you went to see this new facility and see its big unveiling. Tell us a little about it.
Teal Davis: Yeah, I drove up to Casper. The new helibase is on the northwest side of town. It's actually at the Casper/Natrona County International Airport. Fire and government officials later gave speeches outside one of the two buildings that make up the helibase. One building is designed for staff. In it, there's a kitchen, and the facility can house up to 12 state forestry employees. The other building is a large hangar. It's the new home to two single-engine helicopters.
NO: Exciting. And this has been in the works for over a year now. State Forestry had a groundbreaking for the facility last June. Can you kind of walk us through how all of this came to be?
TD: Absolutely. So, funding for the facility actually came from lawmakers back in 2024. It was right before one of the most significant fire seasons we've seen in Wyoming in a couple decades. Lawmakers allocated over $7.5 million to relocate this helibase from Glenrock to the Casper/Natrona County International Airport. State Forester Kelly Norris actually talked to lawmakers about this year's pretty significant fire season earlier this year.
Kelly Norris: This has been one of Wyoming's busiest and most complex fire seasons in recent years. To date, we've responded to approximately 803 wildfires that have burned over 42,000 acres.
NO: You mentioned one of the buildings has rooms for employees, like, to live there? How's that going to work?
TD: It's actually a pretty unique setup for the state. After the ribbon-cutting, attendees were allowed to tour the facility, and I was able to catch up with Chris Falbeck. He's Forestry's assistant fire management officer for aviation. He explained that the housing element is designed to act as an incentive to recruit firefighters. He said the hope is that it will make up for salary caps that are on some positions. State Forestry currently has seven seasonal positions for firefighters. He said these are likely going to be the primary people living at the new base, but long-term pilots and support staff may also be using the new housing.
NO: You mentioned incentives, so what does Wyoming currently offer for firefighters, and why would having additional incentives outside of a paycheck be necessary?
TD: Competitive compensation has definitely been an issue on the radar of lawmakers in the past. Last year, State Forester Kelly Norris was among several fire officials who testified to lawmakers about retention challenges when it comes to fire personnel. In terms of the average salary of an employed firefighter in the state, Wyoming is pretty close to the national median. That measurement accounts for anomalies in high and low salaries or wages. The national median is about $59,300, whereas Wyoming's median is $58,000. However, that doesn't necessarily make Wyoming a competitive place for out-of-state firefighters to move to. Both of our neighbors to the north and south, Montana and Colorado, have more competitive salaries.
NO: And that's not to mention Wyoming State Forestry is also competing with federal agencies: The U.S. Forest Service, which is the biggest firefighting team in the nation, [and] a bunch of Department of the Interior agencies also have firefighters in state. I know that in recent years, lawmakers have brought up a number of bills aiming to make Wyoming more appealing. How have those gone?
TD: Yeah, Wyoming is definitely playing some catch-up on other fronts outside of just salary, as you mentioned. Just earlier this year, lawmakers approved hazard pay, paid time off, and access to state retirement plans for firefighters. It's worth noting that many recent reforms have been focused on volunteers, not necessarily the state's professional resources. And on the volunteer side of things, those reforms are critical to a holistic fire response for the state. Wyoming has the third-smallest professional firefighting crew in the nation, and it's only dwarfed by South Dakota and Delaware. And as you can imagine, that means that volunteers from the community are on the front lines of defense. So while it's just speculation until the state lists fire jobs for next season, I imagine the offer of free housing may be appealing for recruitment.
NO: Okay, let's talk about these aircraft that are at this new helibase. What role do they play in the state's kind of big picture firefighting efforts?
TD: The State Forestry's aviation contract actually just wrapped up for the season at the start of October, so we have updated numbers on how frequently aerial resources are used. This season, there were two main types of aircraft with state forestry, the two helicopters that I mentioned earlier, and four small airplanes that are designed to drop water and that bright red fire retardant on fires. Gov. [Mark] Gordon actually touched on the role of these planes, they're called SEATs, in his speech at the ribbon-cutting.
Mark Gordon: With the SEATs that we have, the single engine air tankers and other resources that we've had, Wyoming has been able to respond much more quickly. But nothing replaces the courage and the tenacity of our firefighters.
TD: According to State Forestry, this season, those SEATs have flown 84 missions and dropped nearly 315,000 gallons of fire retardant.
NO: This season we have seen a shift in, at least federally, how we are addressing fires. It stems in part from an executive order from President Trump that instructed for heavy emphasis on initial attack, that's getting fires out as quickly as possible or keeping them as small as possible. How has that trickled down here into Wyoming?
TD: Yeah. We've seen this both from that executive order as well as from the newly created U.S. Wildland Fire Service, and actually Doug Burgum, the Interior Secretary, advised firefighting crews earlier at the beginning of the season. This push has been to put out all fires on public lands as soon as possible. In Wyoming specifically, we've seen a pretty strong attack. We've seen lots of starts of fires this season, but relatively low acreage burned given the amount of fires that we've seen. This approach was also mirrored by State Forester Kelly Norris during the speeches that were given at the ribbon cutting.
Kelly Norris: Wyoming takes an all hands, all lands approach to wildland fire suppression. This facility represents that philosophy in a very tangible way.
NO: Definitely pros and cons to this approach, right? You keep fires small, less houses likely to burn, but at the same time, it's allowing more fuels to build up on the landscape. That's kind of how we ended up with some of the huge, devastating burns that we've seen in other parts of the country in recent years.
TD: Yeah, and the theory behind that is also that if all of these fuels, as you call them, low-lying brush, accumulate on the landscape, we're going to see hotter fires when those places do burn. It means more devastation, harder fires to control. We've seen a pretty deadly fire season nationwide this year for firefighters. Tentative numbers show deaths at about 16 for firefighters this season, and that has hit home for Wyoming. On Sept. 20, pilots Greg King and Ryan Cutter died while working on the Dome Fire in Yosemite National Park in California. Ryan Cutter actually flew helicopters here in Wyoming during the 2015 and 2016 fire seasons.
NO: Yeah, definitely wildland firefighting is a small and tight-knit community. What are we looking at for the rest of the season here?
TD: It looks like we're on the up and up. According to the National Interagency Coordination Center's outlook, [the] likelihood of big fires that require help from out of state are back to average.
