AFR relaunches outside fire response program

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Last winter, Albuquerque Fire Rescue put a brush truck in service just for outside fires, hoping it would free up the other engines for bigger calls.

From late December to mid-April, it responded to 1,700 calls for outdoor fires. It's back even earlier this year and stocked with supplies for our homeless community.

"There's a level of compassion that goes in you to respond to some of these calls, and you have to put out their fire. On a day like this, it's their only way to keep warm, so that's not always easy to do," said AFR Spokesperson Lt. Jason Fejer.

Fejer says it's necessary.

"Some of these fires have the potential to catch structures on fire and to get exponentially worse," said Fejer.

He says it was a fire scorched the outside of a Smith's grocery store on Lomas and San Pedro in September.

Investigators say a warming fire also destroyed the Wash Tub laundromat downtown in February. That's why AFR is putting their wildland brush truck back into commission this winter.

"Putting this truck into service should take some of that pressure off Engine 5 which is already the busiest truck in the city," Fejer said.

During its pilot season from December 30, 2023 to April 19, 2024 crews responded to 1,700 calls. It started running again Saturday morning, and has already responded to 118 calls for service.

"We're expecting to see big numbers with it this year as well," said Fejer.

This year, instead of just putting out fires, the crew is also giving out blankets and coats.

"We asked those people if they wanted services and a lot of them don't want to go to the shelter. So all we can try to do is help them get through the night," said Fejer.

Within the next month, that brush truck will be replaced with a one ton pickup truck.

Fejer says it's more suitable for city miles than the brush truck they've been borrowing from their wildland division.