Mike and Robin Cook and Dick Wimblish, shown in the middle of this photo, are three volunteers who helped found the Casper Mountain Wildland Firefighters Fund. Volunteer Jeb Filkins, far left and Tracy Lamont, far right, are also pictured outside of the fire station on the mountain on Monday evening. (Brendan LaChance, Oil City)

CASPER, Wyo. — Firefighters with the Casper Mountain Fire Protection District have set up a fund to raise money to buy wildland protective gear and help cover some training costs for volunteers.

Volunteer firefighters Mike and Robin Cook and Dick Wimbish set up the Casper Mountain Wildland Firefighters Fund around July 4, 2021 to raise money so volunteers wouldn’t need to spend their own money purchasing protective gear needed when responding to wildland fires. Tyler and Emily Eickholt, volunteers who have since moved away from Casper, also helped set up the fund.

“One of the turnoffs for recruiting younger members is they come up and say, ‘Okay, what do I need to be able to respond?” Robin Cook said outside of the Casper Mountain fire station on Monday evening. “Well, you’ve got to have boots, you’ve got to have pants, the correct shirt, helmet, pack — that’s $2,000 minimum out of their own pocket.”

“And we have had young members turn away … We may have 30 members but there’s five of us that show up religiously and we need more members. We can’t get more members if we can’t provide them with PPE.”

The community’s response to the call for donations has been huge, Wimbish said. The fund had received a little over $30,000 in donations and secured another $10,000 match on Monday evening from a resident who attended a board of directors meeting on the mountain. (This story is mainly about the fundraising efforts set up by the volunteer firefighters but with the Casper Mountain Fire District’s Board of Directors dealing with some complicated problems, some information about what is happening with the board is included at the bottom of this article.)

With the fundraising effort a way to try and help recruit volunteers, Oil City asked firefighters on Monday why they volunteer.

“For me, I live on the mountain,” Wimbish said. “The fire that was on Garden Creek two years ago was within 100 yards of my house and I said I want to know there’s people up here that will protect this mountain. And I can.”

“I’m retired, I have the time and I can respond in the middle of the week when other people have to work.”

Mike and Robin Cook live in Mills and part of the reason they volunteer is to protect the mountain so that everyone, residents and visitors alike, can enjoy it, Robin said. Robin’s family also has a legacy of firefighting she wants to continue.

“I grew up in the Mills Fire Department,” she said, noting that Mills’s fire department was volunteer for many years. “My dad was a Mills fireman for over 38 years. So to be able to continue to help the community, give back to the community and protect the community is what I wanted to do.”

Mike Cook said there is satisfaction for him in serving as a volunteer, even if the work is sometimes thankless.

Jeb Filkins, another volunteer, said he thinks it is key the fire district do things to find some new recruits as current members get older.

“A lot of our people are getting older and older and younger kids aren’t coming in underneath us, which is scary,” Filkins said. “It leads to how we lose departments.”

Some volunteers had responded to a small fire near a residence on Monday morning and Robin Cook talked about how small incidents could potentially get out of hand if there isn’t someone available to quickly respond.

“One small fire can take out an entire mountain,” she said.

The following is some context in regard to issues the problems the Casper Mountain Fire Protection Distirct’s Board of Directors is dealing with:

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