BLM Press Release
The National Interagency Fire Center Governing Board has selected the Bureau of Land Management Green River District, Moab Interagency Fire Center Dispatch North Zone and interagency partners as the winner of the 2022 Pulaski Award. The recipients are being recognized for their collaboration in advance of and during the Bear and Bennion Creek fires in June 2021 that spread northwest of Helper. The honor was awarded on Thursday during a ceremony in Price.
The Pulaski Award, a 30-inch bronze statue of a wildland firefighter created by artist Larry Noland, is named after Idaho-based U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service Ranger Ed Pulaski, who led his crew through thick smoke, heat and flames to the safety of a railroad tunnel during “The Great Fire of 1910” in Montana and Idaho.
“This award recognizes the amazing quality of our interagency relationships,” said BLM Green River District Manager Lance Porter. “It underscores the importance of how critical these relationships are in a wildland fire setting.”
“We need the foundational support of our partnerships to do the intense, demanding jobs that we do,” said BLM Utah State Director Greg Sheehan. “Fire has no boundaries, but thankfully, neither does the way we respond to an incident. BLM Utah strives for strong interagency relationships repeated in each and every corner of our state to protect our public lands.”
The Bear Fire started by lightning on June 9, 2021, and quickly spread to approximately 5,000 acres the first evening, eventually consuming 12,170 acres. The Bennion Creek Fire, also caused by lightning on the afternoon of June 4, 2021, within the USDA Forest Service Manti-La Sal National Forest consumed 8,313 acres of BLM-managed and USDA FS-managed public lands, state and private property. Yet the quick decision-making and interagency collaboration helped to minimize significant damage and loss of valuable lands, infrastructure and other natural and human resources.
To learn how to become a wildland firefighter, visit www.blm.gov/programs/fire. Read more about Utah’s 2021 Bear Fire at https://tinyurl.com/52fcts8a or the Bennion Creek Fire at https://tinyurl.com/mr2xy2p6.
