Today, there is a memorial being held for three wildland
firefighters who were killed in the line of duty on August 19. For two decades, I participated in the
wildland firefighting scene, so it always tugs at my heart when I hear of these
kinds of events. I was never in a
situation like these three firefighters found themselves in, and I thank God
often for that. I also thank God for
giving me the opportunity to get to know so many of these great men and women,
and allowing me to learn from and work side-by-side with them. It is an amazing job done by some amazing
people. I wrote this story about one of
them, but it could also be a story about so many more of them. Please say a prayer for all those who are
being affected by the wildfires that are still marching across the west,
especially those who have lost their homes, friends, or loved ones. May our good Lord be with them, and may the
rains come soon.
*******
Being a wildland firefighter is in his blood. From the day he fought his first fire, when
he was barely a teenager, he was hooked.
Watching the flames lick at his bootheels had stirred his blood. Feeling the wind suddenly shift from his
face to the back of his neck, knowing that such a shift could signal an
impending “blowup”, sent adrenaline coursing through his veins. The smell of the smoke, the feel of the rake
in his hands, even the gasping for breath as he carried forty pounds of water
on his back to the top of a mountain, all of it made him feel like he had found
the purpose for which he was created.
As a young man, he quickly learned that wildland fire is both manageable
and unmanageable, predictable and unpredictable, life-giving and
life-destroying. Now, forty years
later, he is still being drawn to this great paradox.
For some, the study of fire science is a life-long
profession filled with charts and graphs and research into fuel types,
meteorology, climate, and landscapes.
For him, understanding fire behavior is a sixth-sense. His ability to “feel a fire” is uncanny and
a God-given gift possessed by only a few.
He has only to step outside to know if the air carries with it the
promise of a “good burn” or the denial of yet another “fire day”. He has only to crush the leaves, grass, or
pine needles in his palm to know if the fire will carry across the landscape
unencumbered and unchecked, or if it will allow some level of control, or
perhaps, not be enticed to burn at all.
He was made for being around fire and he knows it.
The old wildland firefighter joke, “If they weren’t putting
them out, they’d be setting them,” isn’t far from the truth. On a good burn day, he is restless, wanting
either to be dispatched to a fire that needs to be brought under control, or to
be asked to assist with a fire that needs to be started (a controlled
burn). Either one will do.
In the beginning, when he was young, there were no control
burns. During his childhood, he, along with millions of other schoolchildren,
watched the Smokey Bear filmstrips and, like so many others, had been convinced
that fire in the forest is an aberration.
So, his early days of firefighting were spent doing only fire
suppression. Believing the Smokey Bear
message whole-heartedly, he and his comrades would attack any wildfire with a
strong sense of mission and vigilantism.
He proved his value on the fireline during those early days, and was
soon considered one of the best. Years
later, as forest ecologists began to understand that fire is an essential
ingredient in maintaining the health and diversity of many ecosystems, the need
for men and women with his fire skills and sixth sense became even
greater.
And so, in order to help meet this need, he began to train
others. He taught them in the classroom
about the fire triangle, and he emphasized that fire is both friend and
foe. He would lead his young crews to a
fire on a mountainside, walk with them up the hills, wait to see who fell
behind, who loved it, who hated it, who wanted to run, and who faced it with
respect but not fear. He would guide
his crews through the thick smoke, pointing out the standing dead trees along
the fireline that proved more of a real threat to any of them than the flames
ever would. Hazard trees, also known as
widow-makers, he called these trees, and sadly, more than a few firefighters
had become victims to them. He drilled
them on the Ten Standard Firefighting Orders, and he watched for those in his
crew who possessed the same sixth-sense about fire that he had been gifted. Those, he would pull aside, and encourage
and in time, those would be the ones he would mentor and prepare for leading
others, as he had been.
For decades, his life has revolved around fire. Each spring and fall has been filled with
watching fires burn through the Appalachian forests, many of them controlled
burns, many more arson. Once the
humidity climbs in the east and fires will no longer burn late into the spring,
he turns his focus to the west. He
packs one half of his “red bag” with the essentials…toothbrush, comb, two sets
of Nomex shirts and pants, a few changes of underclothes, toilet paper, beef
jerky and chewing tobacco. The other
half of the bag, he fills with his gear… tent, sleeping bag, helmet, radio,
water bottles and the required fire shelter that is meant to be used only as a
last resort to protect him from the flames should something go terribly wrong
and his sixth sense fail him. Packed
and ready to respond within hours, he waits for the request from dispatch that
will send him into the frontlines of another western fire season.
When I last spoke with him, it was early springtime. He had heard I was back in Kentucky and did
I want to go burn the woods, for old times’ sake? He was restless, it had been a long winter, a wet winter, and he
was longing to get out and smell some smoke.
I understood. It had been too
long for me as well. We’ll take my
boys, I said, and my father, and he loved that idea. If only your grandfather was here as well, he’d said. And I agreed. My grandfather, the one who’d started it all. He’d had the same sixth sense and decades
earlier, he’d recognized it in this firefighter who later, had trained me.
So, one sunny day last April, we lit a match and my father
and my sons and I watched as this firefighter’s sixth sense was awaken from a
winter of dormancy. Gradually, the
flames began to spread and the firefighter smiled. It’ll burn, he said.
It’ll burn! We grabbed our drip
torches and walked back and forth, spreading a thread of fire behind us. My
sons stood back with their grandfather, watching with excitement and awe as I
had done years ago with my grandfather.
In a few minutes, the small one-acre plot we’d burned around my house
was only smoldering. The fire was over,
and for me, it was enough. I’d been
transported back to my days on the fireline, and I’d enjoyed the visit to my
past, but for me, it was just that, my past.
Now, as we watched the smoke slowly diminish, I took off my gloves, and
my thoughts turned towards what to make for supper.
But for him, it was only the beginning. I didn’t hear from him again after
that. A few weeks after we’d burned my
backyard, spring fire season in the Appalachians was again underway and he was
off to do his part. And then spring
became summer, and the west heated up, and another western fire season that
they are calling “unprecedented” is underway.
The last I heard, he was hoping for a call to go to Alaska. No doubt, he got his wish. No doubt, he is out there now, somewhere in
the smoke, telling one of the hundreds of firefighting stories he always
carries with him, and spitting tobacco juice into the flames.
