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Fire crews request more resources

A Watson Township wildfire will face some high-profile opposition.

As the fire grew, those responsible for battling it requested more resources.

That order was passed to the U.S. Forest Service regional headquarters in Milwaukee.

Some assets were available in the region and will be responding.

The Smokey Bear Hotshots out of the Lincoln National Forest in New Mexico are expected to arrive on Saturday.

Hotshot crews are the firefighting equivalent of military special forces.

“A Hotshot crew is 20 firefighters who work in the hottest part of the fire,” Allegheny National Forest Fire Public Information Officer Wendy Andersen said. “They are staffed, conditioned, equipped, and qualified to meet a variety of strategic and tactical wildland fire assignments.”

There is an eastern region Hotshot crew – the Midewin crew out of Illinois.

When the resource order for the Cobham Hill fire was received and processed, the Smokey Bear crew was assigned.

They will not be moving in straight from New Mexico. The crew had already done some work in the region.

While the fire was much more stable on Friday than on Thursday, Public Information Officer Wayne Wynick of the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Incident Management Team said he expects there to be some work left when the crew arrives.

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