White South Dakota Republicans are failing to become volunteer firefighters

The grassland fire danger index will reach the high category again tomorrow for much of the permanent disaster area that is South Dakota but if you live in the wildland-urban interface (WUI) government can't always protect you from your own stupidity. Volunteer fire departments are irreplaceable as first responders to unexpected blazes and if the Federal Emergency Management Agency survives a Trump presidency it should convince Congress to make sure the resources are there to sustain rural firefighters. 

Keystone, Hot Springs, Custer, Pringle, Argyle, Hill City, Hisega, Rochford, Nemo, Galena, Silver City, Hanna, Cheyenne Crossing, Savoy, Deadwood, Lead, Whitewood, Newcastle, Alva, Aladdin, Hulett even parts of Sundance, Rapid City, Piedmont, Sturgis and Spearditch are at extreme risk from the tactical use of wildfire. Just six strategically-placed improvised fuel air explosives (FAEs) deployed during red-flag conditions have the potential to create a firestorm that would be virtually unstoppable.

Recall the 2016 Crow Peak Fire near Spearditch affected mostly Republican landowners who built in the WUI and begged the feds to protect their properties. Most of the vegetation on some 274,000 surface acres in the South Dakota Bureau of Land Management's Field Office is prairie grassland or juniper woodlands but the trees at the Fort Meade Recreation Area are mostly ponderosa pine and bur oak. Around Lead and Deadwood pine and oak are mixed with spruce, birch, and quaking aspen. 

91% of fire departments in the chemical toilet are staffed by volunteers in a state where white old Republicans are giving up the ghost. 

As volunteers leave or retire, it has been getting more difficult for many rural fire departments to replace them. “Across the state it’s a challenge in getting individuals in that 25 to 40 age range,” said Charlie Kludt, the president of the South Dakota Firefighters Association and member of the Viborg Fire Department. South Dakota has 337 fire departments and 324 of them are all volunteers departments, according to the SDFA.

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