Tool Kits

Professional Firefighting Tool Kits for Wildland and Forest Fires

For decades, since the 1920s, elite firefighters had been asking the U.S. Forest Service for better wildfire hand tools. These new tools needed to improve upon traditional implements such as the angled fire shovel, the 3-inch Pulaski axe/grub-hoe, the McLeod scraping blade/raking tool, the Rhinehart scraping tool, the military Combi-tool, the Council Tool fire rake, mud-flap beaters, burlap bags, and various short-handled hoes and brush hooks. These single-purpose tools were not versatile enough to handle the changing demands of wildfire suppression across America’s diverse ecosystems, including Arctic Taiga, Arctic Tundra, Western Conifer Forests, Eastern Deciduous Forests, deserts, grasslands, and tropical swamps.

As the Incident Command System evolved to manage large and complex wildfires, firefighters needed compact, lightweight, and highly versatile equipment that could easily travel between regions. They also required dependable forest fire fighting tools that allowed them to quickly scrape ground and deploy emergency fire shelters whenever conditions became dangerous.

The Forest Service operated two Equipment Development Centers, but adapting traditional tools to meet modern wildfire demands proved challenging.

A breakthrough came when experienced Smokejumpers, who had fought fires across Alaska, Canada, the Western United States, the Ozarks, the Appalachian Mountains, and the swamps of the Deep South, founded Dragonslayers.com. Through the USDA Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Grant Program, Dragonslayers received both Phase I and Phase II grants to develop a new generation of wildfire equipment. The Federal Wildfire Coordinator partnered Dragonslayers with the Forest Service Development Centers to create the Official Universal Wildfire Hand Tool System.

The goal was to produce forest fire fighting tools that were safer, lighter, stronger, more ergonomic, and capable of breaking down into compact components for easy storage in fire packs and travel bags. The new system was designed to make every firefighter three times safer, three times more productive, three times more versatile, and significantly reduce logistical costs for red-card-qualified firefighters.