Later this afternoon, four firefighters and two fire trucks will leave for deployment to the western North Carolina wild fires. Their initial assignments are to assist with structure protection by building fire breaks around homes and businesses.
Throughout our state, when disasters overwhelm the local resources a call goes out for other departments to respond with personnel and equipment. During the early nineties, we received that help after a tornado devastated the northern sections of Hillsborough. Sine that time, we've answered the call to assist when and where we can.
This deployment represents the sixth time through the years that our local firefighters responded to assist communities around our state when disasters struck. Three deployments have been for wild fire and two were for storm damages related to coastal flooding and winds.
The costs incurred for these deployments are reimbursed so that local taxpayers aren't solely shouldering the expenses.
Please keep our personnel as well as all of the forest service and structural firefighters in your thoughts over the next few days as they work to help the people of western North Carolina.