BATTLE CREEK, Mich. –
Since the National Interagency Fire Center began keeping a comprehensive tally in the early 1980s, the U.S. has seen an average of 70,000 wildfires each year. Those blazes can range anywhere from relatively minor half-acre nuisance burns to five alarm emergencies like the recent Smokehouse Creek Fire in Texas that scorched over a million acres and killed 33 people in February 2024.
Federal and state foresters charged with spearheading wildfire response and supporting rural volunteer fire departments have long relied on military surplus equipment to augment local response capabilities in areas with significant budget constraints. Defense Logistics Agency Disposition Services and its regional reverse logistics field hubs have an accomplished track record of supporting fire suppression efforts by making former military equipment available at zero cost. That repurposing primarily happens through a special transfer authority known as the Firefighter Property Program, or FPP, and a prior effort called the Federal Excess Personal Property, or FEPP, program that began in the 1950s.
The Defense Department handed the
management of FPP to the U.S. Forest Service in 2005, but DLA continues to play the same critical role in national fire response efforts. Not only does the agency
provision the NIFC’s equipment caches with tools, batteries, fuel, and water-handling equipment, but the Forest Service estimates that FEPP historically provided 100,000 items valued at $729 million for firefighting while FPP has brought another 750,000 items originally worth $2.1 billion – almost all of it originating from former DOD stock.
Conversion plans for commonly requisitioned military surplus are dreamed up in the small town of Roscommon, Michigan, which hosts a thought center unique to the world of wildfire response. The state-owned and operated Forest Fire Experiment Station was established there in 1929 as the world’s first fire control and research facility and now represents one aspect of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources Roscommon Equipment Center. The station’s funding has been augmented by the nonprofit National Association of State Foresters since 1972, and all 50 states are encouraged to access it as an information resource for equipment conversion plans and research results.
Each year, Michigan’s REC hosts about a dozen foresters during a multi-day fall workshop that brings fire-focused officials from across the country to share best practices and discuss equipment development and testing. A typical agenda will include hands-on equipment demos, facility tours, participant presentations and FEPP/FPP overviews.
The 2024 workshop was held in early October and included wildfire personnel from states like Wisconsin, Idaho, Maine and New Jersey. Dave Stockoski has served as the REC’s engineering manager for the past five years and he said the real strength of the annual event lies in gathering equipment managers, engineers and mechanics to compare notes.
“Looking at equipment together generates a ton of interaction and ideas,” said Stockoski, noting that much of Michigan’s wildfire apparatus has come from the federal government, and nationwide interest in military surplus and how to convert it to firefighting use was one of the primary reasons that the states decided to collectively fund FFES research. “Our workshop increases the REC’s visibility and keeps people engaged and reminds them that we’re here to help.”
Recent annual statistics from DLA Disposition Services’ Reutilization, Transfer and Donation office show that FPP recipients received equipment originally valued at $98 million in fiscal 2022, $61 million in 2023, and just under $60 million in 2024. The agency considers FFP as a “special program,” meaning firefighters can view and request used and excess items that appear in DLA’s surplus inventory in the first 14 days of the 42-day property screening cycle, alongside qualifying recipients like law enforcement agencies, Civil Air Patrol and DOD’s Humanitarian Assistance Program.