This group makes sure that everything that's needed to fight the fire is made available to the teams.  It's compared to setting up an entire city within 48-hours and as the fire winds down, returning those goods to the proper facilities.  Extended dispatch is responsible for ordering everything from fire trucks and porta-potties to catering.  Margaret Farrell, expanded dispatch supervisor, says, "We put what resources we are looking for and then at he regional level they talk. What do we have close to us? In Colorado, in Nebraska, in Wyoming that we can use that isn't our resources but it's close and as it becomes more demanding, then they look at the national level to determine can we get anything we need from say, Oregon, Washington, Michigan, and it's a national decision process."  Farrell says at this point the team is dealing with five different incidents in South Dakota, North Dakota, Wyoming and Nebraska.  Whenever possible, goods are bought in the local community.  At this point, there are an additional seven people responsible for making purchases.

Justin Pazera