A remote Alaska village's firefighting enterprise lands more federal work

A firefighting company owned by the Athabascan village of Nulato — one of the most remote communities in Alaska's Interior — has picked up more wildland fire work from the federal government, the latest in a run of contracts for an enterprise the tribe built to create jobs at home.

The Bureau of Land Management awarded Nulato Hills Enterprises a $250,000 contract this month for "severity" work in southern Alaska — extra firefighting capacity the government pays for when drought, unusual weather or other conditions push fire danger higher than normal. The roughly month-long job is the newest in a series: it sits under a five-year hand-crew contract the company won in February, which has already produced two crew assignments worth about $495,000 each in August alone.

What the company puts in the field is a Type 2 hand crew — firefighters who work on foot with hand tools, cutting fire line and clearing fuels, rather than from engines or aircraft. The crew serves the Middle Yukon region.

The company itself is a big part of the story. The Nulato Tribal Council founded Nulato Hills Enterprises in 2014 with the stated aim of changing the economic trajectory of the village, and the tribe has said it has grown to more than 200 local jobs — a substantial figure for a small, off-the-road-system community where steady work is scarce. Fire contracts like these are part of how that engine keeps running.