“I actually started this program 23 seasons ago. I was a field forester in our Pinedale office, and our state forester at the time, Bill Crapser, called me up because I was the only one who had any helicopter experience,” said Chris Fallbeck, assistant fire management officer for aviation for Wyoming State Forestry. “Twenty-three seasons later, we're standing in front of a brand-new facility.”
The ribbon has officially been cut on Wyoming State Forestry’s new helibase at the Casper Airport. It will replace the old base, which is located just south of Glenrock.
“To have it in a remote mountain valley was not as appealing as having it co-located with our other assets and even moving us that much more centrally located in this state, so that our response time gets reduced and our preparedness can just continue to go up,” said Fallbeck, who runs the helicopter program.
Officials say the new base not only provides a more central location, but also much-needed upgrades.
“It's state of the art,” he said. “We were working off of Jetpacks for internet. We've got high-speed internet here. We've had well issues, rodent issues, mold, hail damage, all kinds of things at our old facility. To be ...