Upcycling used military transports into rugged trucks destined for fighting wildfires, engineering improved designs for fire-line plows and even getting into the nitty-gritty of dreaming up a better rake for ground crews – it’s all in a day’s work at the DNR’s Roscommon Equipment Center.
Program design and fabrication specialists recently shared what they have to offer in the first virtual workshop provided to firefighting program managers in the U.S. and Canada.
Located in the pine forests of northern lower Michigan near Roscommon, the REC is a federally supported program serving wildland firefighting agencies across the nation.
“The program is incorporated into the work of the Michigan Forest Fire Experiment Station,” said program manager Dave Stockoski. “We develop and test innovations in the way wildfire is fought.”
Workshop attendees logged in from neighboring Wisconsin, Minnesota and Quebec and from as far away as Maine, Kansas, Colorado and Texas.
Features of the workshop included the history of the REC, founded in 1972, highlights of past and present projects and a discussion of how wildland firefighting agencies may submit proposals for new designs. One segment featured the development of the PowerBully vehicle (pictured above) deployed in the Upper Peninsula, which uses tracked wheels to power over rough and swampy terrain that is difficult for traditional trucks to navigate.
Also covered in the workshop was the DNR aviation program, which uses small aircraft to detect fires, track wildlife and spot forest health issues, and an overview of a federal program that helps the DNR provide volunteer fire departments with low-cost, used military vehicles. The vehicles are then converted into firefighting equipment. This helps recycle resources and get valuable equipment into the hands of local firefighters.
The REC has carried on a tradition of Michigan innovation in firefighting for nearly 50 years, and staff are looking forward to building equipment to keep people and forests safe into the future.
