Portage Co. sends strike team to Brokaw blaze

By Brandi Makuski

Portage Co. was asked to send a strike team to a structure fire in Maine, Wis., formerly known as Brokaw, on Tuesday.

The fire was reported at 8 a.m. at TerX Shredding & Recycling Co. LLC, about 47 miles north of Stevens Point.

Local fire crews were called at about 9:30 a.m. on March 26 via the state’s MABAS system. Water trucks, known in the fire industry as tenders, are being sent from fire departments in Plover, Stockton, Dewey, Hull, and Rudolph.

The strike team assembled at the Stevens Point Fire Department for a briefing before heading out.

The team is working under the command of Plover Fire Chief Mark Deaver, with Stevens Point Fire Chief Jb Moody working as his assistant.

Deaver said Brokaw is a rural area and believes his team was meant to “augment water supply,” saying their job was related to “a defensive fire attack” on the scene.

But crews were ultimately not necessary, Deaver said, and were released from the scene shortly before noon.

“They had the fire pretty much taken care of when we got there,” he said.

MABAS stands for Mutual Aid Box Alarm System. It’s a predetermined, tiered response system used in large-scale emergencies that helps dispatchers know which combination of fire, EMS, law enforcement, and other agencies to send to an incident.

SPFD was previously the muster point for a 2023 fire at Fort McCoy, with a much larger strike team.