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Voices of Spencer Creek
Norm's Notebook: Is There Life After Fire?
The real physical dependency we need to look at here is my addiction to fire money.
By Norm Maxwell
Posted on Aug 18, 2005 |
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I have been fighting wildfire during the summer for as long as I can remember. It used to be a lot of fun on a hand crew arriving at the scene of a new fire after driving all night and being sent directly to the fire to cut a line in front of it with cold steel down to mineral soil. Eugene District used to could put out two 20 person hand crews with our own vehicles and tools that could be rolling in two hours with a phone call. We were what is called Type 2 crews. Not hotshots (Type 1) or smoke jumpers but a very credible force none the less. During the Jefferson Wilderness blaze of '96, Eugene District fielded the first crews on the scene and we were on it for two days before the hotshots and overhead showed up. The first 'shot' crews came marching up our cut line and their strike team leader looked down at our park trail hacked through the wilderness and said "This is an excellent line." And of course it was.
The Jeff Wilderness Fire was my debut as a squad leader. I designated my people as the Doughnut Squad. There was Glazed, Jelly, Maple Bar, Sprinkles and Bear Claw. As the leader, I was the Supreme Kreme. The Jeff Wilderness Fire was a strictly walk in show. We slept on the line at night and the smoke would invert on us. Helicopters would drop off paper sleeping bags, Meals Ready to Eat (three lies in one) and drinking water. I lost two of the Doughnut Squad to foot ailments from constant stumbling over volcanic rock.
After a week of this fun, it rained and subdued the fire so that we were pulled out and sent home--about a two hour drive away. A regulation had come down the pike while we were gone that there would be no more OJT squad leader training so I wasn't confirmed as a qualified squad leader. Oh well.
Time passed and Eugene District could put out one crew and then half of one and then a squad and finally none. I was sent as a basic fire fighter to round out a 19 body crew for the Rigdon Ranger District in 2000 and I think that was it for hand crew for Eugene. The people got older and more qualified and started filling fire fighting positions further away from the basic grunt with a shovel on the line.
I drifted into the helicopter crew business and now most of the basic fire fighters on the line are contracted Mexican crews. They hoe onions and shape Christmas trees in the off season. Some are legal and some are not. They are not required to submit to drug testing.
After 9/11, the commercial airlines became a pain as anyone with a one way ticket anywhere was immediately singled out for complete searches of all luggage as well as person. Wildland firefighters are issued one way tickets when they fly to a fire as there is no way of telling when they will return or if they might move to another assignment when they are finished with the current fire. I put up with having my three week bag dumped out on a table and rifled through and myself searched for one season. Some of the inspectors were very curious as to why I toted a flight helmet and a radio in my carry on bag. I was searched three times going to, and three times coming home from the Big Wash Fire near Cedar City, Utah and I decided that I was through flying commercial air to fight fire.
The next year, Big Brother attempted to force us "militia" or part time fire fighters to submit to random drug testing using the policy for the people hired exclusively to fight fire. That didn't wash with the union so BB rushed a new and improved policy through the works that specifically targeted us militia types for RDT. I have never seen a solution in search of a problem moved so quickly through the bureaucracy before.
Under the current administration, we are continually mandated from above to downsize the number of people, vehicles and equipment needed to manage the forests in order to save money. While there is never enough money to accomplish our mission, there is always money for drug testing. I could possibly support the concept of random drug testing for all fire fighters but as it works now, only agency fire fighters with arduous red cards from the Dept of the Interior are targeted for RDT. You can be an incident commander in charge of the lives of thousands of people and do all the drugs you want to with no fear of drug testing. When I attempted to e-mail Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton my message was automatically rebuffed by her spam filter. Little people in the DOI apparently do not have access to Aunt Gale. I had written a fine message explaining what I thought of her drug testing the grunts while the decision makers skate. So far the Forest Service has escaped this Special High Intensity Treatment, but its time is coming.
I was already out on a fire the next year when this totalitarian enactment was foisted off on us so I managed to avoid signing the paper submitting to drug testing whenever the police state decided to impose it on me for that year.
The next year I was tracked down and given the choice of "sign zee papers" or not fight fire that season. Having got myself in a financial jamb, I was forced to sign the wretched document although I inked in "expires in November" of that year. I seethed with anger at waiving my constitutional rights. The real physical dependency we need to look at here is my addiction to fire money.
Last year wasn't much of a fire season and I guess nobody read the expiration date on the paper but I decided I didn't wish to play the game any more. This spring I fell out for the pack test which demonstrates that you are physically fit to fight fire. You are supposed to hump 45 pounds three miles in less than 45 minutes. I came in first with a time of 35 minutes and 36 seconds--almost a full ten minutes under the max allowable time. I didn't want anyone to think I wasn't suiting up because I was too old and feeble to pack the gear.
I just never quite got around to taking the 8 hour fire refresher course which is an absolute requirement to have your red card renewed for the year. There were three or four opportunities. Oh well. One less fifty-something fire fighter in the system. If it should turn out to be another fire season like '95 where people were dredged off the streets to fight fire, I guess I can sit through the the 8 hour orientation and join the action.
It is nice to not have fire season hanging over your head. No eating garbage and sleeping in the dirt this summer for this kid. I borrowed the last $26K to pay off my mortgage from my retirement account and no longer have the Oregon Dept of Veterans' Affairs as part of my life. I have to repay my retirement account loan. It accrues interest but the interest goes back in my retirement account so I don't feel obligated to overachieve like I did with the mortgage. A 3 decade mortgage gone in eight years. That's due in large part to putting in 75 day (out) fire seasons and deferring gratification.
So now some other joneser can grovel and pee in bottles for Big Brother for the rare privilege of fighting wildfire. Maybe Gale Norton can contract out helicopter crews from the Mexicans from the Snake River Valley crews. While it is nice to be able to halve again your annual income, it might be a change of pace to get by on less and be around to enjoy it.
The worst part of fire fighting for me has always been riding in the back of helicopter on a hot summer day and looking below and seeing some fool riding down the road on a motorcycle, not wearing a yellow shirt and not concerned with the ten standing fire fighting orders and the 18 watchout situations. This summer that fool is me.
Norm
Copyright © 2005 by Norm Maxwell
Norm Maxwell is a regular contributor to West By Northwest.org. Norm Maxwell received the 2004 Best of West By Northwest award for his article, The Fire of South Canyon: Remembering Storm King. Tens of thousands of readers have "voted" with their mouse by their selection of this story. Visit Norm Maxwell's other pieces about land use, firefighting and life in the country and more at West By Northwest.org.
Norm's Notebook: Dogpatch and the Developers
Norm's Notebook: Norm's Notebook: Saving Fish Creek, One Dead Car at a Time
Norm's Notebook: Norns and Nests
Norm's Notebook: The Mystery Corner of Section 37
Norm's Notebook: Replanting with Cedar and Pine
Norm's Notebook: A Winnebago, Motorhome That Is
Norm's Notebook: Measure 37 Fallout
Norm's Notebook: The Wayward Bus
Norm's Notebook: New Bike and The Three Acre Wood
Norm's Notebook: A Helicopter and a Hometown
Norm's Notebook: A Different Kind of Pre-Emptive Strike
Norm's Notebook: "Goodbye Dear, I'll be Home in a Year"
Norm's Notebook: Dead Cars and the Six Million Dollar Manx
(Editor's note–Norm's "Dead Cars" story inspired a feature story in the Register Guard, "Heaps of trouble in the woods.")
A Homey Homage to the Homelite: The Stone Age of Powersawing
Take Two: Jackson Road
Norm's Notebook: Battling Broom
Norm's Notebook: A Last Look from the Big Rabbit
Norm's Notebook: From Forest to McMansion, How It Could Happen Here
Norm's Notebook: A Few Acres, a Few Chickens–Who Is Living on the Land Now
Remembering the 30 Mile Fire
Old Men and Fire
The Fire of South Canyon: Remembering Storm King
Wee-wee for BB
Norm's Notebook: The Story of the Spruce Tree, and Mosby Creek, a New Land Use Lot Adjustment
Mentoring Military Style
Three Dollar Hammer
Remember Fire Road
Home, Home on Fire Road and more.
© Copyright 2000-2004 by West By Northwest.org
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