By Aimee Norton
WSLS10 Reporter
Published: March 19, 2008

When February’s forest fires blew across Central Virginia, the National Guard stepped in to help.

“It was good to know that I was there for my community, and my soldiers were there to accomplish what the community’s needs were at the time,” said Lt. Aaron Wallace, a member of Lynchburg’s National Guard Unit. He was on the front lines of the fires, three months after coming home from Kosovo.

A spokesperson for the National Guard tells WSLS if there is a disaster and a community’s local soldiers are deployed, another unit will step in.

“We realize that they’re not going to be here in just a matter of minutes or hours. It takes time for them to deploy their units to get their resources in place to deploy,” said Gary Roakes, the Director of Public Safety for Amherst County.

There are more than 9,000 soldiers in the Virginia National Guard.  Of those, 1,692 are deployed overseas and 90 are deployed in the U.S.  The state also has 715 Virginia Defense Force soldiers who can be called up.

Local emergency departments are also affected by deployments when firefighters and police officers are called to active duty.

“We’ve had two people deployed, one of them deployed twice,” said Lynchcburg’s Fire Chief, Brad Ferguson.

Six Lynchburg City Police officers have also served with the National Guard. Chief Ferguson says he can hire extra people to help with manpower, but the department still feels the impact.

At the Lynchburg Armory, soldiers are taking an inventory of supplies so they are ready for a disaster, or another deployment.

“We make it abundantly clear to soldiers that we have a responsibilities outside the state and the country,” said Lt. Wallace.

One hundred soldiers were mobilized to help with the forest fires in February.

According to figures from the Virginia National Guard, more than 7,000 soldiers are available in case of an emergency.