Saturday, April 6th, Franklin County received a request through the State Fire Marshal’s office for a Task Force Deployment of brush trucks, a tanker and a task force leader to Marshall County to assist with a large wildfire that originated in Pottawatomie County. Northwest Fire District responded with one Assistant Chief as the task force leader and one brush truck out of the Pomona Station with two personnel. Also responding were brush trucks from Lincoln-Ottawa-Harrison Fire District, Wellsville Fire District and Ohio Township Fire District. Franklin County Emergency Management Director Tom Winter also was on the deployment. Upon arrival they received the assignment and were on a 12 hour shift, which ended up being 15 hours fighting a large fire near Blue Rapids, along with dozens of other departments from around the state and aerial support from the Kansas National Guard. They were released shortly after 2:00 yesterday afternoon, April 7th, and returned home later in the afternoon.
Thank you to all the firefighters from our area that helped out in protecting homes and property from further damage in the affected areas.
