Hotshots’ jobs increasingly scary

By Rich Patterson

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Our Forest Service crew was tired after hours clearing fallen dead trees when the call came over our radio. “A fire's burning upslope near Paradise (Idaho). Get there immediately,” commanded the dispatcher.

It was August, and fire danger was high. Although a maintenance crew, we were trained U.S. Forest Service Hot Shots and were close to the fire.

Started by logging machinery, the blaze was roaring through pines as it marched uphill. Donning a fire pack containing a notorious fire tent that hotshots call a “shake and bake,” a canteen and a heavy chain saw, I huffed and puffed my way up and around the fire with the rest of the guys. We topped out on the ridge above the advancing fire front and immediately began creating a fire line on the reverse military crest.

You don't really fight a forest fire. You try to contain it, usually by stopping it at a fire line.

HOW FIRES BEHAVE

Knowing fire behavior is critical, especially by the fire boss who must position his hotshots where they can best halt an inferno.

All things equal, fires burn uphill faster than on level ground or downslopes. They burn faster and hotter with the wind than against it and hotter during daytime than at night.

Creating a fire line is miserable work. Smoke fills the lungs, it's broiling hot, and embers fly overhead. Under these conditions, hotshots cut a swath of trees at a right angle to the fire's path and dig a trench down to mineral soil. Make a good line, get some breaks from the weather and the fire might stop. But it's never that easy.

We got the line finished just as fire approached the crest, hurling embers overhead and down into the unburned forest below us. Fortunately, a new hot shot crew had arrived and was killing embers and the small fires they started. It was nip and tuck. We didn't know if the line would hold when a bomber roared overhead dropping a load of slurry along the ridge, knocking flames out of the tree tops.

It worked. The fire stopped at our line - just as the sun was setting. The fresh crew stayed overnight to put out hot spots as we trudged in darkness down to the fire camp, had a quick meal, and hunkered on the ground for a night of deep sleep.

It was the summer of 1974, and I had the misfortune, or good fortune, to fight fires on the Boise and Targhee National Forests. Being a hot shot back then entailed hours of boredom waiting in fire camps interrupted by hours of backbreaking and usually dangerous work on a fire.

WRONG POLICY

That was almost four decades ago, when the official government policy was that all fires were to be contained by 10 a.m. the next morning. A lot has changed since, and today's hotshots face a tougher job than we did.

That's partly because the since-suspended 10 a.m. rule did plenty of damage while in place. For thousands of years, before the coming of our society, wildfires were frequent across most of North America. Set by lightning or Native Americans, they burned unimpeded for miles until stopped by a rainstorm or natural barrier. Frequent fires consumed most of the brush, grass and dead wood in their path, not allowing it to accumulate. Those fires tended to be relatively cool ground huggers that rarely ascended into the tree's crown.

Despite what's reported in the media, fires do not destroy forests. They change them and generally bring them to a higher level of ecological health.

Today's forests are tinderboxes. Tremendous amounts of fuel have accumulated in the woods, setting the stage for enormous conflagrations. Add to that a changing climate that sometimes brings more spring rains to the forest. Rain might seem to reduce fire danger, but wet springs stimulate the growth of grasses and weeds that dry by midsummer and create explosive fuel, enabling fires to speed across the landscape.

Add to that the growth of summer cabins and houses built on private land near national forests that adds a new element to fire fighting. Hotshots aren't just charged with containing the flames in the woods. Now they must protect houses and the people who might be in them. It's a different and dangerous dynamic.

WE NEED FIRES

Today's fires are monsters, but ironically we need more of them to consume the fuel that's accumulated on the ground. Long-term fire policy should include frequent prescribed burns, set when conditions are relatively safe to reduce fuel.

News of the death of 19 hotshots recently in Arizona hit me hard. Generally young people filled with élan, they are a thin defensive line between a raging wildfire and houses.

It is hard to determine why they died. A quirk of the wind? A poor decision by a fire boss? Whatever the immediate cause of the tragedy, the likely cause of their horrible deaths was years of misguided federal fire policy combined with climate change and the growth of housing in the woods.

My heart goes out to the families of those killed as I cheer today's brave young hotshots who face great danger to contain massive blazes.

Rich Patterson, recently retired as director of the Indian Creek Nature Center and now in a fundraising role, graduated from the University of Idaho with a degree in forestry and a fishery major. He introduced prescribed fire to the Iowa landscape of the Nature Center and has taught many people how to safely burn prairies and savannas. Comments: tbnature@aol.com