A village-based fire crew from Nulato gets federal funding through 2031

A village-based wildland firefighting crew tied to Nulato has federal funding secured through early 2031, under a task order worth $495,000 from the Bureau of Land Management.

The award goes to Nulato Hills Enterprises for a Type 2 hand crew — the kind dispatched to fight Alaska's summer wildfires, and to fires in the Lower 48 as well. It is not the first time a crew connected to Nulato has been funded this way; the community was among the recipients in a round of Western Alaska firefighting contracts a few years back.

Nulato's own community planning materials have described BLM emergency firefighting jobs as an important source of cash for the village — and one that is far from guaranteed year to year. Across Alaska, contract firefighting crews were paid nearly $6 million in wages and expenses in a single recent year, money that flows disproportionately to the small, often Alaska Native communities these crews come from.