New Rural Firefighters Delivering Agriculture Safety and Health Program

Friday, March 28th, 2025 -- 9:00 AM

The Rural Firefighters Delivering Agriculture Safety and Health (RF-DASH) program is excited to announce the addition of its first full-time trainer.

With support from the CHS Foundation and the Upper Midwest Agricultural Safety and Health Center, Tim Zehnder, whose background combines farming, rescue and emergency preparedness, will provide training events throughout the United States and help implement the program on farms and ranches.

Agriculture is one of the most dangerous occupations in the nation. Building upon research from the National Farm Medicine Center showing that rural emergency responders are highly trusted sources of safety information, RF-DASH trains and assists rural fire departments to advocate for emergency preparedness and hazard reduction.

The RF-DASH program is entering its ninth year and has extended to 16 states and five Canadian provinces. The program has directly trained more than 170 first responders.

Many of these individuals have gone on to train members of their own and neighboring departments. The RF-DASH team recently launched a monthly virtual Community of Practice meeting to build connections between RF-DASH trainers across North America.

In addition, the team is set to release an online version of the course with support from the University of Wisconsin Institute for Clinical and Translational Research.

Zehnder is employed by Ex Environmental and brings a wealth of experience to the trainer's role. He started his fire service career in 1990 in Truman, Minn., rising to the rank of chief, and has gone on to serve as fire training program manager at South Central College in North Mankato, Minn., and director of fire science at Mid-Plains Community College in McCook, Neb., as well as serving with the McCook Fire Department until 2020.

Zehnder has been very active with the rescue side of the fire service, including grain bin rescue, farm vehicle extrication, and confined space, among other fire service courses. Zehnder and Jay Pennfield co-produced a grain bin rescue video for Fire Engineering Books and Videos.

“I am very excited to take the RF-DASH program to the next level,” Zehnder said. “This program brings the rural fire service and the farm and ranch community together to not only make it safer for the responding department, but to give the farm and ranch community the opportunity to make their places safer for their families and employees."

During the next 18 months, the team will build custom grain harvesting, handling, and storage modules for the program and execute 18 trainings in the U.S., concentrating in the U.S. grain belt.

“This is going to be an exciting time for the RF-DASH program,” said Casper Bendixsen, Ph.D., the principal investigator of the project. “We have had so much interest in the training modules from around the country. Thanks to new funding from the CHS Foundation, we can finally meet the demand for in-person training at farms that handle grain.”

In order to inquire about firefighter training or implementing the program on your farm and ranch, please contact [email protected] or [email protected]. Please visit www.rfdash.org for more information.

Feel free to contact us with questions and/or comments.