Z is for Zombie by the Cranberries

One of my favorite fire season songs  is Zombie by the Cranberries. It became a fire season song mostly because I happened to become obsessed with it during one of my first seasons, and it now reminds me of everything that comes with summer. Sitting around waiting for smoke reports, cleaning and greasing the leather boots, bouncing around on a dirt road toward the flame.

 

What's in your head?

Fire Away!

W is for Watch Out Situations (18)

Along with the 10 Standard Firefighting Orders, there are 18 Watch Out Situations that every firefighter should have memorized.

1. Fire not scouted and sized up.
2. In country not seen in daylight.
3. Safety zones and escape routes not identified.
4. Unfamiliar with weather and local factors influencing fire behavior.
5. Uninformed on strategy, tactics, and hazards.
6. Instructions or assignments not clear.
7. No communication link with crew members/supervisors.
8. Constructing line without safe anchor point.
9. Building fireline downhill with fire below.
10. Attempting frontal assault on fire.
11. Unburned fuel between you and the fire.
12. Cannot see main fire, not in contact with anyone who can.
13. On a hillside where rolling material can ignite fuel below.
14. Weather is getting hotter and drier.
15. Wind increases and/or changes direction.
16. Getting frequent spot fires across line.
17. Terrain and fuels make escape to safety zones difficult.
18. Taking a nap near the fire line.

S is for Standard Firefighting Orders

There are 28 things that a firefighter ought to have memorized. I'll admit that I haven't put a whole lot of effort into memorizing these things during my past seasons. But as hotshot I feel it's absolutely critical to my safety to always have them in mind.

The first ten things are known as the Standard Firefighting Orders. And if you're into bible comparisons, these can easily be called the Ten Commandments of Firefighting.

1. Keep informed on fire weather and forecasts.
2. Know what your fire is doing at all times.
3. Base all actions on current and expected fire behavior.
4. Identify escape routes and safety zones and make them known.
5. Post lookouts when there is possible danger.
6. Be alert. Keep calm. Think clearly. Act decisively.
7. Maintain prompt communications with your forces, your supervisors, and your adjoining forces.
8. Give clear instructions and make sure they are understood.
9. Maintain control of your forces at all times.
10. Fight fire aggressively, having provided for safety first.


Fire Away!

N is for Night

I have never actually worked a night shift on fire in my 5
seasons. I imagine that one of these times I will, but from my limited experience in hiking off of a fire in the night I'm not exactly stoked on the idea. There are a few advantages to working the night shift on a wildfire. For one thing, it's a lot cooler at night, so working isn't quite so unbearable as the scorching sun added to the torching flames. Another thing is, it's easier to see spot fires and to know just where the heat is.
Since I've never done it before, I don't really know what other advantages or positives are.

There are a few downsides to working at night. Mostly, it has to do with visibility. Every firefighter carried a headlamp in their pack, but it doesn't make it a whole lot easier when you're  hiking on a steep, rocky slope (which can be difficult in broad daylight).

What do you think about working the night shift on a fire?
What are the positive aspects? Or the negative?

Fire Away!

M is for Muscles, Metabolism, and Meat

I've been working out consistently since the beginning of January. I have more defined muscles now than when I started, but I'm nowhere near having a muscular body. I kind of wish I had focused more on building muscle and gaining weight when I first started. The past couple weeks I've tried to gain weight (in the muscle department, ideally), and I don't feel like I'm really getting anywhere.

I know that a lot of people would love to have my metabolism, but right now I'm really cursing it. I feel like I'm constantly eating, and yet never reaching the calories I need in order to put on a few pounds. It's also very expensive to gain healthy weight, and I'm getting tired of going to the grocery so frequently.

When the guys on my crew found out I'm vegetarian, they seemed a little nervous for me...more nervous than they already were about my petiteness. As much as I like to think I can handle being vegetarian while performing all the same duties as any carnivore, it's just not that simple in the world of wildfire where I will rely on the contracted catering companies in fire camp to prepare my meals--that is, when I'm not eating MRE's (is anyone else thinking about that part in Tremors where Burt accidentally eats the toilet paper??).

Firefighters burn and therefore must consume anywhere between 4,000 and 10,000 calories a day. The way most caterers offer the amount of protein and calories we need is by slapping 6-10 slices of lunch meat between two slices of bread in addition to a granola bar, bag of smashed potato chips, apple or an orange, and some kind of fruit juice drink. Vegetarian lunches provided to firefighters can turn out to be just about anything. I've had mini pizzas (bread, sauce, and cheese) along with the usual snacks, which doesn't provide much protein at all. Often there are bean burritos or some gross kind of hummus in pita bread mixed with leftover veggies from the day before. Overall, fire lunches are pretty terrible (especially if you get the rainbow "beef" sandwich), but breakfast and dinner are no better.

As with most American diets breakfasts in fire camps revolve around eggs, bacon, and sausage, which all have high calories and protein and are also very non-vegetarian. Dinner always involves some form of chicken, pork, or steak, and all the gravies are made with meat (and most of the time even the beans or other "vegetarian" options are not really vegetarian).  So when you're trying to keep up with calories in camp, vegetarians have either got to succumb to being a seasonal carnivore or find some way (generally involving spending lots of personal cash on protein powders, etc) to supplement the vegetarian options supplied, or really suffer by way of weight loss and energy depletion.

Since this will be my first season on a hotshot crew, and because a couple guys on the crew recommended it, I've decided to succumb to being a seasonal carnivore and am therefor beginning now to get used to eating meat again. I've been warned that waiting until on a fire to jump into eating meat all day every day could easily make me sick--I have no doubts about that. So, today I decided to ease my way into the meat-eating by cooking up some free-range, vegetarian-fed chicken (drenched in BBQ sauce, of course). I have to admit, that underneath all the delicious BBQ sauce, chicken still tastes like paper. I don't know if I'll survive the summer on a carnivore diet...I'm already looking into what protein powders I can stock up on and stash in my PG bag.

Fire Away!

L is for LCES

In the fire world there are a lot of acronyms. It can be overwhelming at times, but I think in some ways it also helps to remember some of the important things when we're on the line.

LCES is the short version of the Standard Firefighting Orders (which I'll post about when I get to S).

LOOKOUTS
COMMUNICATION
ESCAPE ROUTES
SAFETY ZONES

For every fire operation, regardless of what crew you're on (even if you're the lowly camp crew) it's essential to establish each of these components before going about your duties. It's in the times that these things were overlooked that accidents and even disasters happen.

When I started out on the camp crews, no one ever told me about escape routes or safety zones if, for some reason the camp were to be overtaken with fire. It's easy to feel comfortable when you're nowhere near the fire (or so you think), but fire moves quickly and can be very unpredictable.

One of the fire camps I worked in with the camp crew happened to be situated in the middle of four different fires, which ended up burning together into one massive fire, and overtaking the whole fire camp. Luckily for me, my two weeks were over when that happened. However, there were still people in that camp--food crews, shower contractors, camp crews, and all the overhead/management people. From the stories I heard, it was chaos in that camp. Most of the people (if any at all) were not aware of what safety zones or escape routes even were let alone where they were and when to use them. This is an example of poor communication. Also, it seems like they would have gotten people out of harms way a lot easier if there had been lookouts properly posted to give updates on the fire activity and location.

It's easy to identify what the problems were when things have gone wrong, but the more difficult task is remembering to cover all the bases as you're working. It's identifying what you need in the moment that really makes the difference.

Some things may seem to get repetitive after hearing them over and over in briefings and after action reviews, but when your life and the lives of your crew members are on the line then it's good to get past the redundancy and really make sure that LCES are in place.

Do you have any examples of situations gone wrong (or right) because of LCES?

Fire Away!

H is for Helicopters

Helicopters are great assets when it comes to fighting fire. They carry out bucket drops, transport crews into gnarly territory, and act as eagle eyes for those on the ground.

My first helicopter ride lasted about two minutes. The guys on my crew let me sit in the front seat next to the pilot which gave me an awesome view of the Great Salt Lake reflecting the pinks and orange of the western sky. With only an hour or two of daylight left, the helicopter crew helped transport us and all our gear to the top of the mountain so we could attack the fire and hike back down. (Unfortunately, there was a big flare-up which kept us on the mountain until after dark and we hiked down with our headlamps.)

The second helicopter ride was a few minutes longer, and pretty damn exciting (though nothing to compete with skydiving). I was transported with a crew to the top of a mountain again, but because of how far away everything was, we got to have a ride back to camp instead of hiking down in the dark.

Helicopters are kinda scary...but mostly I think they're really cool.

Fire Away!