I never intended to date a firefighter. It was my thinking that dating a firefighter, police officer, or soldier, greatly increased the chance of getting that phone call that your loved one was not coming home.
Having been a firefighter for 9 years, I had adjusted to being the one people worried about. It was rare times that I actually worried about myself. Being one of the crew EMT's, I mostly worried about my crew members. When I was experienced enough and qualified, I worried about the small squad of firefighters that I led. But I knew when we were all safe back in the buggy, playing cards or reading books. My family didn't.
Hearing about the many firefighter deaths and serious injuries we've had this year, I wait to hear if it's one of my friends. And I worry about Jason, but try not to. Because I've also been in his shoes and know it's so hard to ease your loved one's worries about you. It's an added stress he doesn't need.
During my second or third year in fire, I experienced my first real fear about my own life. For some reason we were down in a drainage with a lot of dead trees that kept coming down, trying to put out smoldering logs and trees. I didn't know enough to spot the ones most likely to come down. But left and right they came down, accompanied by shouts of warning by everyone near it. No, we shouldn't have been down there. I don't know why we didn't refuse the order. Several days in a row we had been pulled out of there because it was too dangerous, then put back in.
I remember hiking as fast as I could out of the drainage, and it seemed like trees were falling all around me. A more experienced crew member slowed to wait for me. He said to stay away from the trees that looked like they were going to come down. They all looked like they were going to come down.
But there we were, back in the drainage another day. Management wanted the smokes put out. Several of my crew members were above me going to get more hose. There was a loud rumble and crash. Shouts. A panicked voice said over the radio, "Hey that tree just fell on somebody!"
As one of the few EMT's out there, I knew it was my job to get up to help whoever it was. I thought it was one of my guys. They were up there. I felt so much panic that one of my guys had just been killed by a falling tree, I couldn't get up there fast enough. I have never felt so small.
When I got up there, my guys were helping the injured firefighter. It had been my crew member's panicked voice over the radio. A log had rolled loose on the hillside and rolled over the firefighter, causing a concussion and some broken ribs. But he would be fine.
One of the first-year guys on the crew looked over at me and said "This is one of those times you don't tell your family about, isn't it?"
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My first year, my very first off-forest assignment, was in the Mojave desert, just north of Idyllwild, one of my dad's favorite places. It was an exciting time for me. I had been driven up to meet with my engine crew that had left without me on my days off. I sat at camp waiting for them to return and watched the fire blow up around camp. I called my dad all excited and told him it was "rippin".
"What does that mean?" He asked.
"It's burning all over the place!"
I spent the day helping out in Plans and even got to do a recon helicopter flight over the fire to make a better map of the perimeter. My first helicopter ride!
That same season, we were back for another fire, this one coming out of Idyllwild. We parked our engines in the tram parking lot where I had been with my dad many times, and we waited and watched to be sure it didn't cross the lot and head off towards Palm Springs.
I called my dad to let him know where I was and told him we were keeping the fire from going in to Palm Springs. I thought he would be excited, because here I was in the tram parking lot, saving the area he loved so much. How cool was that?
A couple minutes after getting off the phone with him, my phone rang again. This time it was Christa.
"What did you say to your dad?"
"Why? What do you mean?" I asked.
"Well he's sitting here crying..."
I heard my dad in the background, "I am not!!"
Yes, there would be plenty of days I would not tell my family about.
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I watched the interviews with the wives of Granite Mountain Hotshots, listening to their stories of tragic loss. I read the incident report, which included short autopsies of the men who died.
But I was on that end. I had been in practice shelters so many times, and real shelters for practice. We would do practice deployments on the hottest days, after running up our training hill. We'd pull our shelters out of our gear, toss our packs and run, shouting to each other to hurry, go faster, deploy there, get in a circle or a line. We'd shake out our shelters, get a foot in, pull it over our heads as we hit the ground, yelling at everyone to get in.
When we were all in, we'd suck in the hot, dry air, making sure there were no cracks in the seal we had with the ground, trying to get sips of water out of the canteen we brought in the shelter with us, trying to catch our breaths, as crew members shouted numbers, names, trying to get a head count and figure out where everyone was.
Sometimes we'd have to move like worms because the "fire" was now coming from the other direction, but you have to do it without letting your shelter lose contact with the ground. Supervisors would grab our shelters and give it a shake, making sure we had it tight to the ground.
Inevitably, it would get quiet. We all just wanted to breathe. It was so hot in those things. Maybe it was 90 degrees outside. Our supervisors would leave us in there for awhile, to give us an idea of the discomfort we would feel in a real fire...when it was at least several hundred degrees out. I felt bad for those who were claustrophobic. Me, I was just glad to not have to be running up that damn hill anymore. My lungs were burning.
Granite Mountain hit close to home for us. We had been on many "staff rides" for fatality fires. While reading Granite Mountain's incident report, Mitch said to me, "On all those staff rides, I always wondered if I would've been one of the ones that died. But on this one, I know I would've."
They all died. All but one, the lookout. Mitch was a very strong hiker, on the lead saw team. He could out-hike any of us. He would've survived most of the fatality fires we'd been to. He would not have survived this one. He was not experienced enough to have been made a lookout, and he was a strong sawyer, he was needed on the ground. I probably would not have survived. Though I had been a lookout on plenty of fires, when the fires were this bad, we generally put our squad leader as a lookout.
The report talked about how their packs melted, their helmets melted. It mentioned proof of certain temperatures around where they lay. "Human tenability." The phrase will stick with me forever. They could tell the temperatures the deployment site had reached by the condition of the men who lay there.
I watched the interviews with the wives and felt great sorrow. My perspective from under a practice fire shelter did not afford me shelter from the reality of what these families were facing. I felt I could not endure what they now had to endure. The moments of trying to find out if their loved ones were ok. The moment they found out they were not, and all the moments after.
I wondered if I would survive my last season on the crew.
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There were times we did things that didn't make sense. There were times we did things just to ease the public's minds. There were times we did things out of convenience of not wanting to be there weeks later, fighting the same fire. There were times we did things because another hotshot crew was doing it, and we needed to be just as tough.
There were times I wondered, were we just lucky? I still wonder. I still don't have the answer, and maybe I never will.
But I don't have to worry about me now. I will never deploy a fire shelter on a real fire. I will never burn to death. I will never have to know how it all compares to being in a practice shelter.
Now I worry about Jason. I worry about the amazing friends I made during my time in fire. I wait to hear their names on the news. And I know there is nothing I can do about it.
But now the voices of those women who lost their husbands take a different tone in my mind. Recently the Wildland Firefighter Foundation posted a photo of Prescott Fire Department escorting one of Granite Mountain's sons to his first day of school. He looks happy and excited to be so honored. His mom's head is down and her face looks strained. The gesture is so touching, but the reason it is happening is too much for her to bear. But she's trying to be strong for her son.
Time does not heal all wounds.
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Please consider donating to the Wildland Firefighter Foundation. They provide assistance to injured firefighters and their families, as well as to families of deceased firefighters. They pay for and organize travel to bring loved ones to their injured or killed firefighters, help with medical costs and provide ongoing support for those who have lost loved ones.
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