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Babblings about my life in the fire world.... |
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Photo by bob Lee, used with permission |
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you really want to know this stuff??? ..well, ok then..you asked for it! |
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My fire career started by accident when I was in a parks and recreation junior college program in the SF bay area. Through that program they sponsored a hand crew for wildfires. In 1977 I went to my first fire, the Marble Cone fire on the Los Padres NF in southern CA. Our crew was on one of the origional lightning strikes that started what ended up being about a 200,000 acre fire. My first shift on a wildfire was over 24 hours..all in all it was quite an initiation to fire...Lost the road we were trying to hold the first night...later I fell asleep standing up while leaning on a Mcloud...In camp I discovered coed showers (a shame those days are gone ~heh heh). In the first few days I kept thinking "god damn this sucks" ..but by the end of the assignment (11 days) I was asking some of the regular and seasonal forest service folks how to get hired. |
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By the time next spring rolled around I had applied for a seasonal position with the US Forest Service. I was hired for the Mendocino National Forest Hotshot crew in Northern CA. Thats pretty much where I stayed for the next seven years...6 of them on the hotshots, the one year I wasnt they didnt have a crew that year, so I spent it cutting brush and doing TSI on the BD crew (now called fuels management crew). During those 7 years I also spent time here and there on engines and finished out 2 fire seasons on the Ojai Hotshots on the Los Padres NF in southern CA after we were laid off at the end of the fire season up north. These were the best days of my life, filled with enough memories for a life time (well, ok, I have pretty much deleted the bad memories from my mind) ...the friendships I developed during those days are with me today, 20 years later. The last few years I had worked my way to squad boss on the shot crew at a GS 5 pay range..pretty good for a seasonal in those days. ..but I had about had enough after 7 years, with one knee operation undry my belt and still with sore knees, fed up with the politics, the bureauocracy and other misc b.s. I threw in the towel after the 1984 season and moved halfway across the U.S. |
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Before I move on...I gotta get a little sentimental...the friendships I developed on my days on the hotshots and the USFS mean as much to me today as they did 20 years ago. Putting aside all the sweat, fire, excitement (and boredom) and O.T.$ it was the camaraderie that made this part of my life so memorable...so(in no particular order) to: J.B., Bird, Hot Buddy, Bugs, B.L., Pinky, Coop (god rest his soul) B.McK., diapers, Butter, J.M., Shipp, Zoom, Woody, Turk, B.B., L.E., P.F., Brother Philip (wherever the hell you are!!!!!), Snotrag, C.F., G.&D.E., C.D., G.B., J.G., K.F., L.A., E.H., .....this ones for you! |
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Update Nov.'00: Brother Philip has been found!! whoohooo! |
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Well, after moving to Wisconsin, getting married and kinda settling down. I signed up for the local volunteer fire dept. ..a little different than my wildland background, but interesting none the less, and something I continue to be involved in today. Eventually in 1988 I was hried by the Wisconsin Dept of Natural Resources as a "Forest Fire Control Assistant" (now called "Forestry/Fire Technician" This brought me back into the world of wildland fire, albeit a little different from my western experiences. |
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Its hard to believe that I've been with the WI DNR 19 years already. While my job involves all aspects of wildland fire (training, presuppression work, prevention as well as suppression) I also have private forestry responsibility (provide forestry assistance to landowners) and assist other functions (wildlife, fisheries) either with dozer work or some field work when they need an extra hand. |
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In WI, and the midwest, things are quite different than out west. Our fire season is mainly during the spring, right after the snow has melted..sometimes we have fires when the gound is still frozen. Occasionally we have a fall season also, but the fall season is typically pretty wimpy. In drought conditions we can have fires right through the summer. Wisconsin uses John Deere 450 series dozers with a hydraulicly operated fire plow. Our dozers also have 120 gallons of water with a pump for suppression and mop up as well as a shower system to protect the operator in case of a burn over. The plows are extremely effective in our neck of the woods and typically only run into problems in soft ground and very rocky places. The dozers are pulled with a 3 ton, type 4 engine. ...and all of this with only one person! ..but thats a different subject. Our major problem here is the vast pine areas...primarily Jack pine and red pine plantations..in a worst case senario fires can run anywhere between 5-15 thousand acres in a single afternoon. But to date with the tractor/plows, our terrain and aggressive mop up we have never had a fire make any significant run on the second day after ignition. Quite often these fires are in fairly intensive interface areas and in a worse case senario can directly threaten 4-600+ homes in a burning period so structural protection is a priority as well. |
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Whew! ..well, I suppose thats more than you wanted to know...so... |
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...back to the home page... |
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If you have gotten this far and are still awake...please back up and sign my guest book so that I know who stopped by! |
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