Minot Air Force Base firefighters extinguish a fire caused by a train derailment between Burlington and Des Lacs in May 2022, shown in this Air Force photo by Senior Airman Caleb Kimmel. The train, transporting a variety of material, ignited, causing at least 11 cars to set fire. The Minot AFB Fire Department has mutual agreements with 24 Minot and area fire departments.

MINOT AIR FORCE BASE – Fire Emergency Services (Minot Air Force Base Fire Department) of the 5th Civil Engineer Squadron at Minot AFB has 24 mutual aid agreements with fire departments from Minot, Minot Rural and area communities.

“That’s a pretty significant impact across the firefighting community of emergency services network that we have,” said Lt. Col. Scott Howe, 5th Civil Engineer Squadron commander.

He said the Minot AFB firefighters train with other fire departments, including joint training with Minot City and Williston fire departments to maintain Airport Rescue and Fire Fighting (ARFF) certification for airport firefighters.

The squadron’s Readiness and Emergency Management flight maintains management oversight of mutual aid agreements with local, county, state and tribal emergency response partners.

The Office of Emergency Management also teams up with non-governmental organizations and teachers to share advancements in emergency response and chemical detection capabilities.

The Emergency Management Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear (CBRN) Flight of the 5th Civil Engineer Squadron is the first CBRN Flight in the U.S. Air Force to have Ghost Robotic’s Vision 60 unmanned ground vehicles, commonly called “robot dogs.”

“One of the folks on the innovation installation team was able to get ‘robot dogs’ — a little over $9 million – to test for the Air Force robotic dogs for going into places that humans might not want to go into. Remotely now the ‘robotic dogs’ can go in instead of humans,” Howe said.

Minot AFB Fire Department and communities

MINOT AIR FORCE BASE — These are the communities that the Minot Air Force Base Fire Department currently has agreements:

Antler FD

Berthold FD

Bowbells FD

Burlington FD

Butte Rural FD

Carpio FD

Donnybrook FD

Drake FD

Drake Protection District

Garrison FD

Granville FD

Kenmare FD

Max FD

Minot FD

Minot Rural FD

Mohall FD

Parshall FD

Ryder FD

Ryder/Makoti FD

Sawyer FD

Stanley FD

Surrey FD

Velva FD

— Source: Minot AFB 5th Civil Engineer Squadron