City honors AFD’s work training firefighters for wildland-urban fires

Throughout her time on the dais, District 10 City Council Member Alison Alter has stressed the need for the city to understand and prepare to fight wildfires in the wildland-urban interface, or WUI, which is the area between unoccupied land and human-made structures. On Thursday, she sponsored a proclamation praising the Fire Department for making sure that every Austin firefighter has been trained in WUI firefighting, which is significantly different from fighting structure fires.

Joining her in delivering the proclamation were Council members Mackenzie Kelly, Paige Ellis and Ryan Alter, all of whom represent west side districts perhaps most at risk of wildfires.

Austin is among the most vulnerable cities in the country to wildfire, she said, noting that the whole city needs to be prepared for the wildfire threat. Austin is now the largest city in the world to have every firefighter trained in fighting fires in the WUI, she said.

Back in 2021, Council allocated funding to support training all of the city’s firefighters to respond to fires in this combination zone. Part of that response was creating a training curriculum that did not exist at the time. She thanked Austin Firefighters Association president Bob Nicks, as well as retired battalion chief Randy Denzer, for their work in making sure that every firefighter got the training.

Fire Division Chief Carrie Stewart, who accepted the proclamation, said it was important to recognize the firefighter instructors who taught others about firefighting in the wildland-urban interface. Those instructors, she said, spent their Friday and Monday nights for the past two-and-a-half years teaching fellow firefighters about how to fight such fires.

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