BATTLE CREEK, Mich. –
The Defense Department provides collaborative support to firefighters nationwide through a partnership between Defense Logistics Agency Disposition Services, the U.S. Forest Service, and state forestry agencies who all work together to help firefighters gain access to excess military equipment.
While most of the property was not used to fight fire when fielded by the military, it is often modified by rural and volunteer fire stations to meet their needs.
Michael Huneke is the national program manager for the U.S. Forest Service’s firefighter property programs. He said 27 states acquired property though FPP/FEPP in 2024. Collectively, those states received about 61,000 items last year originally valued at about $71 million.
Huneke said his office has an agreement with the individual state forestry agencies, who determine how to best distribute the property within their state and which fire departments will receive which items.
“Mostly, the items are placed in rural and, often, volunteer fire departments,” Huneke said. “Often in underserved areas where obtaining funds to purchase new equipment is an impossibility. … The program is critical and saves a tremendous cost to local government and volunteer fire departments.”
Columbia County Fire District Three in Washington recently acquired two former military trucks from the program, expanding the district’s operational capabilities.
Jeromy Phinney, chief of CCFD 3 for the past ten years, has served in the district for 25 years overall. He said his firefighters are responsible for approximately 290 square miles in a landscape that ranges from sagebrush desert to wheat fields to timber. The only ambulance service available within 800 square miles also operates from Phinney’s station.
Recently, Phinney’s firefighters finished converting two former military trucks received through FPP into firefighting apparatus. Both trucks were outfitted as mobile attack tactical tenders. At the core of the conversion, he explained, was the addition of a water tank and remote-control nozzle on the front of each truck.
Phinney estimated that the program saved his department $700,000, if it were to try and buy new trucks, but their budget made that option an impossibility.
“What I can say is the program has been absolutely great for us,” Phinney said. “I don't want it to go away, because that's the only way we're updating our wildland equipment. We can't afford to go buy new.”