The new fire and aviation manager for U.S. Forest Service Region 1 hasn’t even been in office a week and he already has a tactical challenge scheduled on his calendar this summer.
Ralph Rau will have to move his command post from the old regional headquarters in downtown Missoula to the new base at Fort Missoula on Aug. 1, the customary start of Montana’s active fire season.
“I haven’t even unpacked all the boxes,” Rau said Wednesday in his sparsely furnished space on Pine Street. “But things are already picking up in the eastern part of our zone. We already have all of our Hotshot crews committed.”
Nevertheless, Rau’s expecting a slightly better start to the new job than last summer at his post as deputy forest supervisor for the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest across the border in Idaho. That forest logged more than 250 forest fires, including 25 large incidents.
“There were only two or three communities in there that weren’t evacuated or under evacuation order last summer,” Rau said. “That puts communities under a lot of stress. We recognize that.”
In his new post, Rau will oversee firefighting activity across 25 million acres of Montana, North Dakota and parts of Idaho and South Dakota. He also has a leadership role working with other state and federal land managers who share fire responsibilities.