Day 41: FIRE!

Day Forty-One: FIRE!

7/22/11:

On July twenty-second, I slouched around the Williams Ranger District, napping in Joe’s hammock while its owner got to work his very first fire. To say that I was jealous does not come close to expressing the exact emotion I was feeling at the time. Instead of digging line and getting mocked for a very clean yellow shirt (a sure mark of a firefighter newbie), I swayed gently with the breeze under the boughs of two large ponderosas.

But really, I would have liked to have traded places if even for a day.

Sadly, despite a number of fires breaking out in nearby forests, I was destined to never sniff the scent of smoke. I hadn’t taken the S-130/S-190 courses or a pack test (three miles with a forty-five pound pack in forty-five minutes or less), which meant I wasn’t red-carded and not to be trusted around any wildfires (too idiotic to know when to run I guess...?).

This was rather an unfortunate state to be in as Neil, Joel, and Travis, acting as fire archs, were stretched thin. Fire archs worked with firefighters to protect archaeological sites, a task that took a variety of different forms. This could mean surveying areas around the wildfire to determine if there were any sites or walking beside a dozer with an archy GPS to make sure fire lines were made around archaeological structures to protect them. Often, fire archs pitched in, digging line with firefighters and doing whatever work was needed.

The Williams Ranger District housed a couple of fire engines as well as a helicopter pad for helitack teams, and throughout the summer, a few different fire crews from Oregon and California camped out on the district lawn, called down to help out on Arizona fires. Coming back from a run on Bill Williams Mountain Trail, an incredibly fit young firefighter gave me a quick smile as she asked what the trail was like; a week or so later, another firefighter about my age made my day when, mistaking me for a fellow, she had asked me how many summers I'd been working fires.

As I observed, days spent working on a fire were often grueling. We lived with two firefighters (Micah and Tyler) at North House, although I didn’t see hide nor hair of either of them until almost a month into my internship. They’d both been out on fires, working twelve hour days and making a nice fat paycheck thanks to overtime. When Micah and Tyler did get back to North House, covered in dirt and grime, I would watch (a bit reverently) as they plowed through food just because they needed the extra carbs. 

Later in July, when Neil, Travis, Joel and Joe were called out on fires, they too found themselves working long hours and over weekends, stumbling home with just enough energy to eat. They worked the Woodbridge Fire on the east end of the Tusayan District (an area thick with brush shelters, hogans and sweat lodges); they tackled the Parallel Fire east of Red Butte and the Armstrong Fire between Red Butte and the eastern Tusayan District; they slogged through the Skinner Fire in the central Tusayan District; and they finished out with the Lower Fire in the Grand Canyon and Hull Cabin area. All of these fires were caused by lightning strikes (which are apparently hotter than the sun when slamming into a tree).

Dry Arizona, with more than its share of overgrown forests, hardly stood a chance.

Admittedly a little miffed that I never got to experience one of these forest fires firsthand, I consoled myself with the knowledge that there would undoubtedly be many, many more fires (for better or for worse) in the coming years.

Which is why I’ll be out on the Grinnell track this spring with a weighted backpack and a timer, training up for my pack test and anticipating the glory of a beautiful, shiny little red-card of my own. I’d like to think that somewhere in the future, a fire and a clean yellow shirt are waiting for me.

*As of March 2012, I've passed the pack test and got myself a red-card. During summer 2012, I will be working as a wildland firefighter on the Kings Peak Wildland Fire Module on the Ashley National Forest in northeastern Utah.

Photos: 1. Joe in his new yellows 2. & 5. FIRE! 3. Joel and Travis digging line around a brush shelter 4. KNF Fire Archaeology shirt designed by Travis and Joel (photo credit: Neil and Joe)