Welcome to the Central Arizona Wildland Response Team (CAWRT) Home Page!

CAWRT is a consortium of approximately 20 local fire districts and departments located in central Arizona that participate in state and nationwide wildland fire response. CAWRT agencies are cooperators with the Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management and work in the Region 3 Southwest Geographic area. CAWRT is made up of two Wildland Resource Groups (WRG), CAWRT East (GRO) and CAWRT West (MAO), of the 15 WRG’s statewide used to meet resource coordination and mobilization needs.

CAWRT works closely with state and federal land management agencies (the Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management, United States Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Indian Affairs, National Park Service, United States Fish and Wildlife Service) and maintains a relationship with the Maricopa County Department of Emergency Management. All members strive to promote increased firefighter safety, better communications among local, state and federal partners, and improved training opportunities in order to provide highly capable wildland fire resources.

In total, CAWRT provides the State of Arizona, federal land management agencies or any other requesting authority or agency a pool of more than 250 wildland-qualified personnel staffing any mix of 18 type 6 engines, 6 type 3 engines, 7 water tenders and if necessary up to 20 type 1 engines. In most cases engines are staffed with one to two paramedics (advanced life support/EMTP) on each unit, and at the very least, all personnel are EMTB qualified. Overall, CAWRT provides safe, professional and well trained resources to fires locally or to anywhere in the United States.

CAWRT agencies are categorized as Automatic Aid Members or Associate Members. Automatic Aid Members are part of the Phoenix Regional Dispatch System or Mesa regional dispatch system. Associate Members are not in the regional dispatch system but have wildland fire response resources in the local area. All agencies follow the guidelines of the National Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG) and the NIMS Incident Command System (ICS).  Some of the ICS positions held by current CAWRT personnel include Task Force Leader, Single Resource Boss, Division/Group Supervisor, Incident Commander Type 3 and Base Camp Manager to name a few. Many CAWRT agencies will deploy fire line or base camp medical personnel (EMTB, EMTP, EMTF, EMPF) for incident staffing and several agencies staff positions on Southwest Area Type 1 and 2 incident management teams.

CAWRT personnel and equipment from either the East or West group are dispatched for wildland fire assignments by the Arizona Interagency Dispatch Center (AIDC) through established Inter-Governmental Agreements with the Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management. Resources are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week and 365 days a year.

Resources can be dispatched by calling the AIDC at 1-800-309-7081.