IN-PERSON & ZOOM MEETING : Wildfire Danger for Austin

Retired Battalion Chief with the Austin Fire Department (AFD) Randy Denzer will talk to us about the wildfire dangers in the Austin area.

 

 

Randy Denzer has more than 30 years in the fire service and is one of the highest certified and qualified wildland firefighters in central Texas. He retired last year as a operations Battalion Chief with the Austin Fire Department (AFD). His last assignment at AFD was Battalion 2 B-Shift in Northwest Austin.

 

During Randy’s career at the Austin Fire Department, he wrote many wildland response policy’s for the AFD. One of the policies he drafted became the initial Wildland Urban Interface policy put into practice in 2008. This policy laid out how firefighters in Austin and Travis County are to protect structures during interface fires. Many of the policies he helped to create through the years are still in practice today. In 2012, Randy successfully spearheaded the effort that created the AFD’s Wildfire Division. Later that same year, he designed and led the training program that required every AFD and Lake Travis Firefighter to become a certified national basic wildland firefighter. The AFD became the first large urban fire department in Texas to achieve this status.

 

Randy has responded to many large Urban Interface and Wildland fires. He has operated as a Structural Protection Specialist, Division Supervisor, Task Force Leader, Incident Commander and other command level positions. In the spring of 2011, he was deployed on the first ever Texas Intrastate Mutual Aid System (TIFMAS) response to the west Texas fires. He also responded to fight the Pinnacle fire that spring. During the 2011 Labor Day fires, he acted as the initial Wildland Division Supervisor at the Steiner Ranch Fire. One day after the fire was contained, he was sent to lead a TIFMAS Strike Team at both the Bastrop Complex and Riley Road fires. In 2018, Randy was selected as a Task Force Leader on the first out of state TIFMAS deployment that sent 240 Texas Firefighters to help fight the Carr Mega Fire in Northern California. A Couple months later, He was sent to lead a Structural Protection Strike team to the Woolsey Fire in Malibu, California. In October 2020, Randy was a TIFMAS Task Force leader sent to the Creek Fire in Fresno, California. While on the assignment, he was assigned as a Division Supervisor for Whiskey Division on the south end of the mega fire.