I wondered how many days in a row I could cook my brain before I did permanent damage, as I started up the mountain for the second consecutive day under warmer weather than we’d had all year. It was the Friday of my second week on a Hotshot Crew in Northern California and only a few of the overhead were at work. The rest of the twenty person fire crew would show up in two weeks and I had a lot of work to do to even get close to the required physical condition that these elite hand crews demand. Hotshots regularly hike several miles in steep terrain to reach a fire before going to work on clearing brush and setting backfires or burning out vegetation in advance of the main fire. I had spent five years on a wildland fire engine and had only limited experience on a Hotshot Crew, but for some reason it was what my heart wanted so I was damned to follow regardless of the pain and difficulty.
Loaded down with thirty-five pounds of gear on my back and a twenty-five pound chainsaw slung over my right shoulder I trudged behind our other Senior Firefighter and focused on setting my boot down in the dirt where his picked up. Wearing green pants, a long sleeve yellow fire shirt, wool socks and leather lace up boots that rose to the base of my calf, I could feel my body temperature start to rise within minutes of the start of the hike. I could feel sweat start to gather in the sweatband of my white hard hart that bore a sticker with the Hotshot emblem on each side. Jeff, hung over from a late night at Jolly’s, lead the hike wearing the same uniform and carrying the exact same gear. The difference was, I was half his size.
We had hiked a much steeper and longer hike the day before and I had nearly collapsed. They offered to take the saw from me but there was no way I was going to be the girl that couldn’t hike a saw, so I staggered up the mountain overheated and exhausted with one of the guys behind me to steady me when I started to topple, which happened more frequently than you would think. Without him there I surely would have tumbled down the mountain for quite a ways before coming to a stop at a landing.
This year I would be one of three women among seventeen rugged and dirty men but I was the only female on the crew who was a Senior Firefighter, which put me somewhere in the middle of the ranks. I would be expected (and I expected myself) to lead by example, both physically and mentally. Becoming a Hotshot doesn’t merely involve being hired onto a Hotshot Crew; it must be earned through sweat, hard work, dedication and having enough grit in your heart to earn the respect of your peers that are already considered Hotshots and have been for years. Technically yes, I am a Hotshot for I’ve been hired on as one but that doesn’t buy me a belt buckle or the ability to lead so the crewmembers under me will follow.
During the weeks preceding my transfer from an engine in Southern California to a Hotshot Crew in Northern California, I had endured so many expressions of doubt from friends, family and coworkers. Everyone worried, as did I , about the stability of the vein in my shoulder that had literally been crushed between my rib and collar bone the summer before during a short term detail on another Northern California Hotshot Crew. My rib had been removed and a new vein grafted out of my leg and after 5 months on Disability, my doctor had released me to full duty. My arm still felt funny sometimes, as if some one was kinking a hose in my armpit, but I had yet to develop swelling and figured this was how it was going to be for the rest of my life. A firefighter assigned to a helicopter actually told me I shouldn’t go to a Hotshot Crew and belonged on an engine. He said “Hotshot Crews tear girls up”. When I responded that Hotshot Crews tear guys up too, he responded with “You don’t want to go to Klamath Hotshots, they’re dirty!” I’m not sure what about me gave him the impression that I didn’t like to get dirty because I never showed up to work wearing make-up and it was a rare occasion that I even wore deodorant.
I continue to lace up my boots despite my own doubts and comments from others because I absolutely love my job and the pride that comes with a long day of hard work. The smell of smoke is fairly equal in my book to that of freshly brewed coffee in the morning. It soothes me much like the feeling of home. Ignoring all my setbacks, I’ve started a new chapter in my life: packed up all of my belongings and relocated to a new town filled with strangers. I put on my brave face, but in all honesty I’m afraid I won’t be able to keep up with the crew, that they won’t like me and that I’ve committed myself to several years of loneliness and extreme physical demands. I’m afraid but I will keep my head down to hide my pain and fatigue and I will act like a leader. I will clench my jaw when I want to cry and I will act like a Hotshot, and maybe, I’ll become one.
No comments:
Post a Comment