Source: NCDA&CS, 9/27/21


The N.C. Forest Service helps individuals across the state with many things throughout the year, including forest and wildfire management. Not only do they help people within our state, but many employees are also dispatched to other states affected by wildfires, like Texas and Montana. We talked with five forest service employees who recently came back from dispatch missions on their experience and what they learned.

David began his career in forestry as a correctional officer and project leader for the BRIDGE program. “I realized how much I loved the forestry and fire aspect of the job in that position,” David said, “and from there I moved on to become a forest technician.” Most recently, David was dispatched in Oregon helping with the Rough Patch Complex. Throughout his trip, David worked as a fire behavior analyst where he was responsible for collecting weather data, developing strategic and tactical fire behavior information, predicting fire growth and interpreting fire characteristics for use by incident overhead.

Although working long hours was difficult on dispatch because employees typically work 16-hour days, David really enjoyed getting to work with a variety of people from all over the country and seeing things he had never seen before. “When you are working with people from all over the country, professionalism, cooperation and patience are musts,” he said, “although I miss my family and my bed, it has been an honor to be a part of this dispatch mission.”

In the future, David will continue to grow and learn as the assistant camp director of the BRIDGE program as well as a fire behavior analyst and help on dispatch missions where he can. When he is not working with the forest service, you can find him at Rendevous Mountain. “It is a beautiful forest,” he said, “it’s never crowded and it has great views so I highly recommend a visit!”

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