Local Man Maps Western Wildfires

One Upper Cumberland man has spent the last five weeks mapping wildfires in Montana.

Jason Duke is a geographic information systems coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

“It’s been a rather severe wildfire season in the west, and where I work for the US Fish and Wildlife Service the Department of Interior made it a mandate that anyone who’s what’s called “red carded” could go out and assist and we assist in wildfire, earthquake, hurricane and tornado responses,” Duke said.

It’s not unusual for Duke to be gone a few weeks out of the late summer season.

“You could stay gone pretty much from July through September because different fire seasons in the nation, for example right now, California’s starting to have more development then earlier in the year you’ll have more fires in Alaska,” Duke said.

Duke said he made maps twice a day, which assisted civilians, emergency officials and firefighters.