"When [the new Flagstaff fire chief] arrived in town he asked some people in the fire department at that point to please tell him about the fuel management program… They quickly responded that he didn't need to worry, because they didn't use a lot of diesel in their trucks."
Flagstaff, what's going on around the community and within the community of Flagstaff is really unique in this country, and is something that we need to take a lot of pride in. The fuel management program was in the department, started in 1996. And it started as a result of the serious fire season that was occurring in and around the community that year. And for the first time, I think the community was scared: there was a lot of concern, it was easy to see smoke clouds on the horizon, lots of acres were burned during the day, and people were rightly afraid of what potentially could occur. I think a lot of the credit for that also goes to the fact that we had a new fire chief that arrived in Flagstaff a couple months prior to the beginning of that fire season. He recognized the issue of fuel management as a potential for devastating fire. In fact, one of my favorite stories is when he arrived in town he asked some people in the fire department at that point to please tell him about the fuel management program, what was the fuel management program. And they quickly responded that he didn't need to worry, because they didn't use a lot of diesel in their trucks. They were coming at it from the standpoint of how many gallons of fuel are we pumping a day or a week into our engines in our stations. And that wasn't the issue at all. But it shows you where, even the department, at that point was coming from when they heard the term fuel management.
And so the program began in 1996, right after one of the last fires went out in this part of the country. And it was an acre or so, thinning was done around Fire Station #4 on Butler. And it was a gut-wrenching experience for the community and for the fire department, and for the city, and for a lot of others. This was new, they weren't sure what it was going to be involved with. It took a long time to treat that one acre, and it was thinned, selective trees were cut out. It was burned. But it was necessary. It was one of those things I don't think you can rush. People have to become comfortable with what is the change. They have to see it. And so while we look at it today and say, "One acre, big deal! Why'd it take so long?!" We go out and do an acre now in half a day and nobody even looks at it. But they did at that point. It was very important for the community to see that.
So I came in 1997, with the charge to begin this effort formally—begin this effort and build the program, and have enjoyed doing that since.