News from New York State Department of Environmental Conservation

For more information contact: Yancey Roy, 518-402-8000

New York Forest Rangers, DEC Crew Join Fight Against California Wildfires

New York Team Regularly Called Upon by U.S. Forest Service

ALBANY, NY (07/11/2008; 1215)(readMedia)-- New York forest rangers and other Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) personnel left Friday to join the effort to combat raging wildfires at the Los Padres National Forest in Big Sur, California, DEC Commissioner Pete Grannis announced.

Besides rangers, the crew will include personnel from DEC's lands and forests, operations and pesticides programs. They likely will be at the California fires for two weeks.

"New York State's Forest Rangers are among the most highly trained, professional wildfire fighting teams in the nation," Commissioner Grannis said. "These Forest Rangers and DEC wildland firefighters will be an asset in the fight to halt the spread of wildfires in the California. We are proud of their efforts."

The firefighters are being dispatched through a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Forest Service. This agreement allows for the sharing and dispatching of firefighters throughout the country. New York forest fire crews score consistently high performance ratings and, therefore, are routinely called upon by the U.S. Forest Service to assist in other states.

The 21-person New York State crew is departing from the Saratoga Springs Fire Cache, traveling to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, by bus. In Harrisburg, the New York crew is slated to join three other crews and fly directly to California. The crews are expected to spend 14 days on active fires assigned to the East Basin Fire Complex. On Thursday, July 10, the multiple fires in this complex had burned 89,735 acres of timber and brush with extreme fire behavior reported. The fires were 29 percent contained at the time of reporting and containment was not expected for many days to come. This fire complex is located five miles southeast of Big Sur. Updates on this and other nationally reported wildfires are posted at http://www.fs.fed.us/news/fire/index.shtml.

The DEC personnel dispatched to the fire are:

Forest Ranger David Kallen, Crew Boss

Forest Ranger Robert Praczkajlo, Squad Boss

Forest Ranger Charles Kabrehl, Squad Boss

Forest Ranger Michael Bodnar

Forest Ranger Robert Piersma

Forest Ranger Robert Mecus, Squad Boss

Forest Ranger William Giraud

Forest Ranger William Meehan, Crew Representative

Forest Ranger Justin Thaine

Nicholas VanDervossen, Division of Forest Protection

Dwight Partridge, Forester

Joshua Borst, Forester

Daniel Gaidasz, Forester

Steven Brown, Division of Operations

Matthew Manning, Forester

James Canevari, Forester

Jerry Eaves, Division of Operations

Aaron Graves, Forester

Harry McDaniel, Division of Operations

Christopher Sprague, Forester

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