The Los Alamos Fire Team

This week in Washington many folks have already started work on the most important campaign plan of the summer -- beating the traffic to the Bay Bridge for a long July 4th weekend. (Since, the 4th is on a Monday, let's leave Friday - no, too much traffic, let's leave Thursday.)

The 50 people on the multi-agency team managing the response to the Las Conchas fire near Los Alamos, N.M., have a much more important campaign plan -- controlling a monster blaze that has already resulted in the evacuation of 12,000 people from the city of Los Alamos and has the potential to double or triple in size.

The Southwest Incident Management Type 1 Team managing the Los Alamos fire epitomizes multi-agency cooperation, with members drawn from federal agencies including the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, Forest Service and Park Service.

The team, headed by Incident commander Joe Reinarz, from the Forest Service Williams Ranger District in Williams, Ariz., also has members from multiple state and local agencies including Arizona State Forestry, and fire departments in Austin, Texas; Flagstaff, Pinestop and Tuscon, Ariz.; and the New York City Fire Department.

This team has close ties with the New York City Fire Department -- it deployed to New York from Sept. 11 - Oct. 13, 2001, providing logistics and mapping support for the response to the World Trade Center attacks.

This Type 1 team -- one of 16 in the country -- has the resources to manage large-scale, complex incidents and has experts in logistics, operations, information, safety and planning, as well as finance.

Here's the team website. Check it out and think of these folks as you flip burgers over the weekend.