Helitack crew critical to firefighting

MONTROSE — The Grammar Fire is contained and the Moon Fire under watch — all thanks to several firefighting crews and various local and federal agencies.

For Virgil Arment and his team, battling those fires and others like them is all in a day’s work.

Arment leads the Wyoming High Desert Helitack crew, which responds to fires throughout the mountain west. He and his seven-member team traveled from Rawlins, Wyo. to the Roan Cliff Fire near Grand Junction July 12, and since that time, they’ve been kept hopping.

“The Grammar Fire started while we were still in Grand Junction. While we were on the Grammar Fire, the Moon Fire started,” he said, just a few hours before his team departed for Craig. “That’s our job.”

Helitack crews benefit fire fighting and fire management by providing everyone on a fire with an accurate, bird’s eye view of it. This helps determine what structures need protected or, as was the case during the Grammar Fire, evacuated. The helitack crew can also size up the fire, determine what type of fuels are being burned and how it is moving.

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