Life On a Hotshot Fire Crew

[LifeIsGood]

PART 1 (of a 2-part post)

After high school graduation, I went to work for the U.S. Forest Service as a Wildland Firefighter. Once I had accumulated enough experience, I was hired on a 20-man Type 1 Hotshot Fire Crew, which are considered “elite” crews (though we were far too modest to actually use that term ourselves). But we really did perform an unbelievable amount of exercise to prepare, often enduring two hard workouts per day (I once counted 500 push-ups during a morning training session). And we really did spend a great deal of our time on the front lines of the biggest and most dangerous fires. I spent the next decade on this crew (1998 to 2008), working 6-month seasons (May 1 to October 31), and have been assigned to fires in every western state: Alaska, WA, OR, ID, MT, WY, CO, UT, NV, CA, AZ, and NM.

If the following description of life on a Hotshot Crew sounds exaggerated, be assured that this info comes straight from my personal diaries. And keep in mind that some crews are known to be tougher and stricter than others. Also, it seems that the job really was more difficult in past decades. For example: when I started, our work schedule was 21 days straight of hard labor, then 2 days off in the nearest motel to rest, but at some point this was reduced to “just” 14 days (I wonder if the shifts are still 16 hours long?) Additionally, we were seldom seen, usually being in remote areas, or protecting houses in towns that had been evacuated, but I can tell you we were generally drenched in sweat and absolutely filthy, covered in dirt and black soot (which I’m sure is still true for today’s Hotshots).

We often commuted to work in helicopters, even on occasion Army Black Hawks and double-rotor Chinooks. Admittedly, there were plenty of long, boring days spent “mopping up” (mixing and stirring dirt for any remaining embers and hotspots until cool to the touch), but there were also many, many days when we “burned out,” fighting fire with fire, because the main fire was too dangerous to “go direct” (constructing fireline along the edge of the fire). Burning out can be done with handheld flares, or by lobbing specialized “grenades,” but is usually done with driptorches, pouring out a flaming mixture of gasoline and diesel. Some days we kept burning for our entire 16-hour shift, covering several miles along logging roads, dozer lines, our own handline, or even creeks and swamps. Afterward, we would space out and hold the line, sometimes all night long. Sometimes, we could partner up, then take turns sleeping, either wrapped up in a space blanket or curled up next to a smoldering log.

Done correctly, our burnouts and backfires were always under our control, and we would pause whenever things were getting too wild, but the main fire was sometimes a surreal and terrifying force of nature. On many occasions we witnessed flame fronts running and crowning, making the deep “freight train” rumble, and these are completely uncontrollable, as the total flamelengths can be literally 200 feet high. Not even a retardant air tanker can stop a front like that. We sometimes tried anyway, and our crew got “painted” red many times, but some fire fronts are simply unstoppable. At that point, we would just have to get out of the way, and a number of times we had to jog out at doubletime, which is really exhausting with a 15-pound chainsaw on one’s shoulder. Having to run like that was also really scary, so I finally stopped this line of work. Several of my crewmates had been seriously injured, and several fatalities had occurred on fires that we were assigned to. I have absolutely no regrets, but it was time for me to get out.

[LifeIsGood]

PART 2 (of a 2-part post)

Excerpt from my personal diary in the year 2000, recounting the time that our crew got trapped in a major blow-up of the Seeley Complex in Montana:

“Most of this dispatch was unbelievably stressful. We were flown in to the #6 fire, and camped out with two other Shot Crews. On our third day, two people got hit with snags (standing dead trees), and it was decided to fly us all back to fire camp, especially since there were no real safety zones anywhere.”

“Eventually, our crew was flown back in, as it was deemed imperative to keep the fire west of Monture Creek. We were instructed to cut line around some fire that had crossed over. In the afternoon, the winds picked up, and fire activity was getting more extreme. The sawyers out front came back down the line, complaining that the fire kept crossing their saw-line. And none of us felt that our anchor was secure on the trail, so we all moved down the line and were reassessing.”

“Then a wind shift caused a flame front to move very quickly downcanyon, from the north, straight towards our position. There were huge 200-foot flamelengths, and trees were torching constantly. Suddenly there was also torching in the drainage below us, too loud and too close. The order came for RTO (reverse tool order) doubletime, while flames were moving quickly towards us. We were able to reach a nearby safety zone that we had scoped earlier, an area that had already burned. Then we simply sat in the ash and watched the show!”

“Our line was hopelessly lost. There were huge flames on all sides of us, and we were trapped. Some of the torching trees were only 100 feet away. Helibase said on the radio that they wanted to extract our crew as quickly as possible. But our Superintendent Crew Boss (Mark) told them that it was literally impossible.”

“Eventually, things seemed to be settling down a little, so Mark took our best saw team to an old hunting camp, hoping to cut out an area large enough for a helicopter. But they had walked through a lot of unburned fuel to reach the camp. They did manage to cut out a helispot, but then the fire started raging again.”

“From our safety zone, we listened to the radio traffic from Mark: ‘Helibase, is it possible to send a ship to pick us up immediately?’ ‘Yes, 21 Zulu is on his way now. What is your situation?’ ‘We are standing in this corral with our fire shelters in our hands, I don’t think he’s going to make it in time.’ They were only a 15-minute hike away, and we could hear the intense rumble heading directly towards them. The pilot had great difficulty locating them in the smoke, but did manage to pick them up with only a few minutes to spare.”

“Soon Mark was back, riding shotgun in 21 Zulu- he wanted us to hike down the trail, to the south, during a lull in the fire behavior, so we were doubletiming and tripletiming down the trail. The fire had incredibly burned almost all 3 miles back to the original helispot that we had flown in to. We were moving through a forest of dead, burned trees, constantly afraid of being hit by falling snags. Every few minutes another snag crashed to the ground.”

“Then we reached the fire front. I just hoped that there were no sudden gusts of wind. Mark was hovering over us, and said that it’s now or never. We hit tripletime, but then had to stop for a minute to let a flareup on our left settle down- there were 50-foot flames. As we crossed through the front, we went through ground flames 3 to 6 feet high. As I passed, some flames torched up a couple feet to my right, forcing me to hold my arm over my face as I ran past. We finally arrived at the helispot, where there were multiple helicopters hovering, ready to fly us out.”

“Analyzing this day reveals that some serious mistakes were made. Basically, Mark should never have left our safety zone and gone to the hunting camp. Even worse, our crew should have just slept in the ash there overnight, rather than passing through a fire front. I’m going to blame these mistakes on overconfidence.”

THE END

[cottonmountaineering]

thanks for sharing your story and your service

[LifeIsGood]

thanks for sharing your story and your service

Sure! I’m expecting everyone to keep saying my posts are too long

[skyrme17]

Thank you for your service!!

[pvnisher]

I know so little about the actual techniques used. I understand the concepts of a backfire, and of clearing lines so that hopefully the fire won't cross it.
But then phrases like "we would space out and hold the line all night", I don't understand what that really means.

It just seems that with things like a chainsaw and shovel you'd be so helpless against a fire!

I'm very grateful for the things people do that go so often unheralded. I've done my share of things that are incredibly dangerous for the greater good, and have a lot of respect for the fire crews.
We always just hear "75 percent contained", with no actual appreciation for what that means.

All that to say, I liked the post and personally I'd like to hear more about the things you actually do, and why.

I'd rather hear it from a real person than AI slop, so I'm not going to Google it, either.
Ha.

[LifeIsGood]

I've done my share of things that are incredibly dangerous for the greater good, and have a lot of respect for the fire crews.

I believe you are referring to your time in the military, so I would like to say thank YOU for your service! I have tried to avoid comparisons between firefighting and combat because, A) I personally have no military experience, and B) being in a scenario in which other humans are trying to kill you is an entirely different level of stress.

phrases like "we would space out and hold the line all night", I don't understand what that really means

“Holding the line” simply means monitoring a fireline to ensure the fire does not cross- which can actually happen quite a lot during wind shifts, or from embers from burning snags (standing dead trees). Immediate action is taken, including throwing dirt and digging line, and ideally there would be a fire engine close enough to assist.

[LifeIsGood]

Burnout Operations are one of the most interesting aspects of wildland firefighting, as it can be really exciting (and sometimes scary). The people in charge of these operations were invariably extremely experienced, having almost a sixth sense about when and where to do this. It can be done with anywhere from one to four people lighting.

image.jpg

FIREFIGHTER #1 STAYS SLIGHTLY AHEAD OF THE OTHERS, AND HIS LINE OF FIRE DRAWS THE SECOND LINE TOWARDS IT

IMG_1956.jpeg

THIS WOULD BE FIREFIGHTER #1, STAYING OUT AHEAD (WITH FIREFIGHTER #2 TAKING THIS PHOTO)

[LifeIsGood]

One last personal diary entry for this thread, also written during the 2000 fire season:

“5/10/2000, We are on a fire near Los Alamos (a city of 12,000 people in New Mexico). We worked three night shifts, then went to sleep at 10am this morning. Four hours later, we were ordered to, ‘Hurry up and get up! Everyone get geared up!’ The fire was out of control. We looked up to see a huge black column of smoke, and the winds were raging. I pulled the bandanna off my eyes, and took my earplugs out, then crawled out from under our crew truck. Los Alamos is now being evacuated.”

“4pm, homes are burning. We attempted to stop a fast-moving fire front by conducting a rushed burnout operation just ahead of it, but didn’t have enough time. We quickly geared up, but the fire was moving rapidly towards us, so ten seconds later we jumped back in to our vehicles and took off. Looking back, we saw engine crews running away, then the fire easily jumped the road exactly where we had been standing.”

“We tried again a short time later on a different road. This time we immediately started burning out, with several engines providing support. Our crew started laying down fire, and we laid A LOT of fire. In a matter of seconds, I was looking at a wall of flames, and I was directly across from a torching tree throwing 60-foot flames up. I kept backing up from the intense heat. Then at the same instant, I saw my whole crew running towards me. The fire front had come too quickly for us to stop it, had jumped the road, and was taking off. We all ran. Jeremy was last, and he was tilting his head back as he ran because there was so much heat on his neck. Our vehicles almost got burned up, but we had kept our drivers ready. We were actually instructed to start cutting line and catch this front, but we all knew this just wasn’t going to happen. Our Crew Boss told them no, it was just moving too fast.”

“5/11/2000, Wakeup was at 5:30am. Over 100 homes have been lost already. They are now evacuating Espanola (a town of 10,000 people, 15 miles to the east). We started the day by cutting a firebreak along a row of unburned houses, while other houses were burning just 2 blocks away. Later we conducted several burnout operations. At one point, our Crew Boss and Foreman were doing the lighting, and everything was going just fine, but then they had some sort of miscommunication, and laid down too much fire at the inside corner of a road intersection. The corner blew up and trees were torching. I was the one holding at the corner, with 60-foot flames in front of me. I started gridding all over on the green side, looking for spot fires, because I had seen so many embers and sparks raining down everywhere. I found one spot, and started to work it, but then saw flames above me. So I threw all the burning material in to one pile, then yelled for help with the bigger spot. It was moving fast uphill, and I was furiously throwing dirt, but to no avail. Luckily, an engine was close enough to help, and they hosed it down.”

“During a crew briefing, we complained that we had been ‘run out’ by fire runs five times already, just barely in to the fire season, but our Crew Boss was dismissive. All he said was, ‘You’re going to get run out by fire, it happens.’ He is very experienced, but sometimes overconfident.”