COLUMBUS, OH -- A second crew of 20 Ohio fire fighters has been dispatched to Montana, part of a multi-state team mobilized to help suppress major forest fires in the Northern Rocky Mountains, according to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR).

At the request of the U.S. Forest Service, the Ohio Interagency Fire Crew left Columbus late Wednesday night for a staging area in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. In Harrisburg, the Ohioans joined two interagency crews of fire fighters from Pennsylvania and one from New York. The four crews will fly to Duluth, Minnesota today where they will be joined by another interagency crew from that state. The crews will fly on to Missoula, Montana and a staging area at the Northern Rockies Coordination Center. Supervisors will then assign the crew to fight one of the many forest fires now burning in the region.

The Ohio crew, 19 men and one woman, includes seven ODNR employees, one Ohio Fire Academy employee, three National Park Service employees and nine volunteer firefighters not affiliated with a state or federal agency. In a separate dispatch on Wednesday, an ODNR fire fighter supervisor, not part of the 20-person crew, left for the Bitterroot National Forest where numerous wildfires are raging near Sula, Montana.

All the Ohio fire fighters are expected to remain in the Northern Rockies for two weeks.

This year is shaping up to be one of the worst forest fire seasons in 50 years in the United States. A summer of high temperatures and low rainfall throughout much of the West has set the stage for hundreds of wildfires now burning from Arizona to the Canadian border. And the situation is likely to get worse before it gets better, forestry experts believe.

A crew of 20 Ohio fire fighters who returned from Montana on Tuesday received outstanding evaluations for their efforts in combating the Ferry Canyon Lake fire near Helena. One supervisor's evaluation said the Ohioans were the best on the fire line. Crew members also said they gained valuable experience in Montana, facing fire behavior they had not witnessed before.

-30-

For Further Information Contact:
Mike Bowden, ODNR Division of Forestry
(614) 265-1088
-or-
ODNR Media Relations
(614) 265-6875