Chasing blazes
The West is on fire.
And it doesn’t just seem so. As of September 2, over eight million acres have burned, with 2015 on pace to become the worst year on record. Years of drought, combined with the decades-old policy of containing (when possible) wildfires before they spread, have left forests packed with fuel and primed for a spark, be it a lick of lightning, a callously flicked cigarette, or a careless campfire. And as more Americans migrate west, more homes are being built in potential fire zones. Evolving forestry practices collide with the pressure to save private property, putting firefighters in the middle of life-threatening conflagrations.
Such was the case on June 30, 2013, when Arizona’s Yarnell Hill Fire overtook the Granite Mountain Hotshots–a crew of 20 elite firefighters–killing all but one. As one of the worst wildfire disasters in the nation’s history, it’s obviously a difficult subject, but one well suited to Kyle Dickman. A former editor for Outside magazine, Dickman also spent five seasons with the Tahoe Hotshots on the front lines in California. His book, On the Burning Edge, offers a chilling, factual account of the event, as well as intimate portraits of the fallen heroes and those who love them.
We asked Dickman about the hotshots, his experience fighting fires, and the developing role of the Forest Service in managing fires. One note: This piece was originally intended as a comparison between the experiences of the hotshots and smokejumpers: firefighters who parachute into nascent wildfires as first-responders. Jason Ramos, author of the recent Smokejumper: A Memoir by One of America’s Most Select Airborne Firefighters, had agreed to participate, but unfortunately was pulled away in order to fight one of the several major fires currently burning in Washington State, one of which claimed the lives of three firefighters and seriously burned a fourth. We wish him and all of his colleagues success and a safe return.
Q&A with Kyle Dickman, Author of On the Burning Edge
What were the origins of the hotshots, and what is their role in fighting wildfires?
They originated in Southern California in the late 1940s after fires burned a bunch of homes. Whereas smokejumpers specialize in stopping small fires from getting big; hotshots crews specialize in catching the blazes that escape. The 20-person teams work America’s biggest fires and use chainsaws and hand tools like Pulaski’s to cut lines free of vegetation around the perimeter of the blaze. A crew might build a mile of line in a day’s work. It’s backbreaking and physical labor, but lassoing a fire with line remains the most reliable way to contain a wildfire. They’ll work 16 hours a day for two weeks straight and might cut line for 110 days in one fire season. Hotshots fight more fire than any other job in the fire service.
How did you get involved in with the hotshots?
I spent four years working for a US Forest Service engine crew while I was in college. A few of the guys on the engine had spent years on hotshot crews and they filled any moment of downtime with stories from their time on the line: the fitness (six mile runs at a six minute pace; hundreds of push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups), the action (100 days a fighting fire a season), the money ($40,000 in eight months!). I was 18 when I first started fighting fires, and nothing sounded cooler than spending a summer chasing blazes around the West with 19 other fitness-obsessed young men and women. So the year I graduated college, I got a job on Tahoe, fought fires for 90 days that summer, then left the fireline to pursue a career in journalism.
What sort of personality is driven to such a dangerous occupation? Is there a specific culture?
I don’t think danger drives hotshots to the job. Obviously, working next to 100-foot flames is part of the thrill, but I think hotshots take the job for a variety of reason: they love the hard work, the camaraderie, camping out in some of the most beautiful places in the West, the simplicity of the lifestyle, the clarity of the mission. You win when the fire goes out. Firefighters on hotshot crews tend to be a mix of personalities and backgrounds. On my crew, I remember swinging a tool between a college educate white guy who became a hotshot after quitting a job making $100,000 a year in finance and an LA-born latino who’d spent years in prison for robbery. The former inmate ended up becoming a captain on a hotshot crew. What most hotshots have in common though is they’re young, male, and comfortable being uncomfortable.
Smoke from wildfires in Washington State’s Northern Cascades, August 25, 2015 (photo: Jon Foro)
What goes through your mind when you’re entering a dangerous situation?
Is the risk worth the reward? How to I get out if something goes wrong?
What’s your most important piece of equipment?
Coffee cup.
Did you ever find yourself in a situation where you thought things might get out of control?
Sure. I remember having to hike ten miles out of the wilderness at night because the fire exploded and overran our gear cache: chainsaws, Meals Ready to Eat (MREs), extra fuel and pulaskis were all burned over. Embers were swarming around us like angry bees. But it never approached the level of tragedy because the superintendent had the wherewithal to get the crew out of there in time.
As the West continues to suffer drought—and people keep building homes in areas of high fire risk—what is the role of the Forest Service in managing wildfires?
Well that’s a big question. Right now, the Forest Service is the biggest agency in the wildland fire business. They spend between $1 and $2 billion every year to try and control fires, and their Fire program now consumes half of the agency’s annual budget. By 2025, it will take up two thirds, and the other programs that we associate with the Forest Service–recreation, wildlife, fisheries–will suffer, dwindle, and eventually just disappear. In their place, will be the US Fire Service.
All other federal, state, county, and municipal agencies that fight wildland fires look to the Forest Service for guidance. The firefight has become so expansive that no organization but the federal government can manage fires that, most years, burn nearly 10 million acres and 3,000 homes. But it’s now clear that the Forest Service’s historic approach to wildfires, which has been to put them out, is failing.
There are 140 million people living in fire-prone lands, and because of drought, climate change, and forests that have grown thick after a 100 years of fire suppression, fires are burning more intensely than at any point in history. The combination spells disaster. The truth is that no number of firefighters or amount of money can stop the behemoth blazes that in recent years have consumed towns like Yarnell, Arizona, or Colorado Springs, Colorado. So, expect to see the agency slowly adapt their approach to wildfires. They’ll start letting more burn, lighting more prescribed fires, letting loggers thin the dense forests around community, and spending less fighting fires. Either that, or they’ll stay the course, and we’ll see some horrible tragedy like the burning of Denver or Oakland.