By Mary Drier (Contact / Staff Bio)
April 25, 2009 - 10:05 p.m. EST

CASS CITY — Being a DNR officer sounds like it would be a cool career - communing with nature and upholding state game laws; and it is, but it can also be hot and dangerous, too.

Matt Feldpausch is the forest fire officer at the DNR field office at 4017 East Caro Rd. (M-81), Cass City.

Whenever there is a large, out-of-control grass fire and local fire departments call for extra help, he is the one who responds with the department’s bulldozer and Hummer.

“The Hummer is ‘grass rig,’ kind of like what local fire departments have, and it also is our water engine on scenes,” Feldpausch said. “When there’s a large grass fire, we like to roll them both.”

He was the officer operating the DNR’s bulldozer at the 40-acre marsh fire near Vanderbilt Park in Wisner Township last Saturday.

There are a number of things that have to be kept in mind when fighting a grassfire whether on a dozer, or on a Hummer.

“The first thing is safety,” he said, noting there is an adrenaline flow when it’s you against acres of raging fire shooting flames dozens of feet high in the sky.

“You want to fight the fire but you have to watch it and what you are doing, and above all, think about your safety and that of others.”

Airplanes are also valuable firefighting tools the DNR has that local fire departments don’t.

The DNR owns a couple of small airplanes, and it also contracts with pilots for help as spotters during a fire.

“They are our eyes in the sky. From their vantage point, they can see how and where the fire is spreading, and kind of have our backs while we are out there,” said Feldpausch. “I plow as close to the fire as I can to head it off by taking away the fire’s fuel source so it doesn’t get a full head of steam. Then, that area is watered down. That’s done to try to minimize the number of acres of burn.”

Turning up the ground with a bulldozer is done to “pinch off” a fire by getting ahead of it and talking away anything that can burn.

He works dangerously close to a fire. He has basically the same training as those working at a fire department, except he specializes in wild, forest and field fires.

Feldpausch doesn’t just work locally. He can be sent to wildfires - like in California or Washington - that are seen on television broadcasts burning out of control for days at a time over hundreds and thousands of acres.

“It’s like a mutual aid agreement, like all fire departments have,” he explains. “If a fire is too large for one department to handle, they call in others. It’s that way with wildfires, too.”

Locally, he was one of the DNR fire officers who fought the “four-mile fire” near Grayling two years ago.

When he’s not fighting fire, there is equipment to maintain year round, and he also oversees some snowmobile trails working with the Thumbs Up Snowmobile group.

Feldpausch is also the person who does the postings on the sign along M-81 indicating fire conditions.

“The adjective board says if the change of a fire is high, low or moderate, and I put that up,” he said.

He has more than 11 years of experience with the department.