Northern Blair County Forest Fire Crew

The crews story starts back a few years when two friends got together.  In 1982 Dave Lynch and Mike Beckwith started fighting wildfire as junior firefighters at different ends of the county. When Dave moved to Tyrone and joined the same fire company as Mike that is when the dream started. They both fought fire on the local fire company crews. In 1989 Dave and Mike got on the Pennsylvania Special Forest Fire Crew, that same year they went to Idaho to fight wildfires. After this experience the two got more and more involved in wildfires. As the years went on Dave and Mike got more fire company members intrested in the out of state program. With more members and the addition of better training, the local Fire Inspector started to use the fire company crews on off district fires. Dave and Mike started to use their fire check money to buy better wildfire equipment for the crew. This lead to the starting of the shirt sales to raise more money. In 2000 the local fire warden retired and Dave was appointed to that position. The fire company crew continued to travel off district to help fight fires. In 2003 they incorporated the Northern Blair County Forest Fire Crew as a support crew outlined by the DCNR Bureau of Forestry. The new crew started with ten members and over the past years has grown to twenty eight from across Blair County. We are very proud of how far the crew has come in this short period of time.

The Crew Equipment 

The crew started with a 1997 Chevrolet Pick up truck. We were given the truck in 2004 and utilized it for 2 fire seasons. In 2006 the crew bought a 1977 Volvo type 3 engine off of the Huntingdon Fire Dept. The engine only made one fire, after having problems finding a place to house the engine the crew sold it to a local contractor.

At the present time the crew operates a 1997 Chevrolet 3500 four door, four wheel drive that is a cooperative vehicle from DCNR. The truck is set up as a crew and equipment transport.  The truck has the county # 38-41.

This year the crew received a grant and purchased a trailer for equipment transport and command post. The trailer is a 2009 Haulin 7x14. The front is set up as a command post with radios for Blair, Clearfield, and Cambia county Fire/EMS and for State Forestry for all 20 districts. The back is set up for equipment storage.