Silver City, NM, January 16, 2018—The Gila National Forest successfully hosted the 4th Annual Gila Firefighters Line Spike Volleyball Tournament on Saturday, January 13.

For the fourth year in a row, the Gila National Forest sponsored a volleyball tournament to raise money for the Wildland Firefighters Foundation. The main focus of the Wildland Firefighter Foundation is to help families of firefighters killed in the line of duty and to assist injured firefighters and their families.

The tournament was a success and the team from Las Cruces, “The Soft Sets” took first place in a double elimination. 2nd place was from Silver City Ranger District “The Back Burners” and third place went to Sun Valley Hardware. The concession stand was run by the Gila NF’s Employees Association – with Juan, April, and Dimi Ortiz, Jessica Ybarra, Louis Castillo, Arnold Lopez, Jr., and Kathleen Hawkos manning the stand throughout the event.

Helping coordinate the event were Silver City RD employees – Patrick Garcia, Arnold Lopez, Sr., Leo Trujillo, Javier Kirker, Ed Huerta, and Billy Trujillo. $1,200 was raised with $1,000 going to the Wildland Firefighter Foundation and $200 to the Gila NF Employees Association. We want to thank Silver High School for allowing us to use their facilities, and all sponsors and teams for helping us make this a success.

For more information on the Wildland Firefighter Foundation, please go to https://wffoundation.org/us/ .

For information on the Gila National Forest, check out our website at http://www.fs.usda.gov/gila .