Back in the good ole days, I flew a helicopter for the Park service in Alaska.

I was assigned to a fire pro team, and the really cool part about that was we got the best silverware. No kidding, I had this great soup spoon with the words “fire pro” engraved in the handle. Whenever we were on a fire we would scoff at the heli-tack teams and their plastic dinner ware.

Anyway, the first time we went on a fire I was all gong-ho to get out there and stamp that big fire out - yeah! My enthusiasum was probably noticable because one of the other pilots came over to me and explaind that “we’re fire fighters, not fire puter-outers. If you put the fire out, we’ll be out of work.”

On my second fire I saw what that other pilot was talking about up close. Lighting had struck about a mile from our camp. During the night - which looks just like the day in far north Alaska - a group of about a dozen smoke jumpers lept from an airplane onto the burning tundra.

They formed a fire line and beat back the deadly flames until they had the fire down to about ten feet wide. Then they pitched their tents. One or two smoke jumpers would keep watch over the fire as the rest slept, ate or read a book. At dinner time everybody gathered around the wild-fire-turned-cooking-appliance and heated up their food.

Over the next three days they tendend their domesticated fire as it wandered across the tundra, they moved their tents every day to keep up with the flames. It wasn’t until the next fire broke out, and a helicopter came for them, that they put out the last little bit of flame.

Now my question is this: How many of us work in an organization of fire fighters? How many of us are fire puter-outers?