PONDERING

For the past few days I have been thinking about the loss of the Granite Mountain Hotshots.  These were an elite bunch of firefighters that have lots of training and experience in dealing with wildland fire.  In order to be a hotshot crew they have to have lots of leadership training in the key positions and lots of experience fighting the worst kinds of wildland fire.

Through this process I have recounted many days in my life when I was fighting fire.  I did the fire line thing for sixteen years and got qualified to be a Division Supervisor, this position is responsible for a segment of the fire and is responsible for all of the resources assigned to that part and for the safety of all of them.  I worked hard to become an Operations Chief, this positron is responsible for all of the resources and firefighters on the entire fire.  

I tried very hard to get there but was finally told that there were way too many full time fire people ahead of me for the Operations Chief job and that if I wanted to continue fighting fire I needed to find another occupation.  The Incident Commander (IC) that told me this was one of the fire people who I respected the most---then and now.  I was crushed---he knew it---so he went way out of his way to help me stay in the game.  

I was brought into a fire where he was the IC as a field observer.  This position gets out on the fire and tries to figure out what the fire is going to do and how best to attack it.  The person reports back to the Plans Chief and the Plans Chief and Operations Chief determine where the next days resources will be assigned and what their assignments will be. 

The IC met me at Check-In, which was unusual then and unheard of today.  He told me he didn't need another Field Observer on the fire but he really needed a Supply Unit Leader.  I laughed and said I don't know one thing about being a Supply Unit Leader.  He asked me how long I had fought fire.  I told him sixteen years.  He said that was long enough to know what was needed and he wanted me to go into the Supply Unit on the fire and get trained up.  I went over to Supply, where two long term Supply Unit Leaders that I was well acquainted with were working.  It didn't take me long to figure out that I had been fast tracked by these two Supply Unity Leaders, the two Logistics Chiefs and the IC to get qualified.  

This was a fairly large fire in southern Idaho and it was burning like crazy.  It ended up being 3500 acres, a large fire for the times.  I spent the first two days working as an Ordering Manager, the person that orders everything for the incident.  The next two days I was the Receiving and Distribution Manager, the person that gets all the materials and gets them to where they are supposed to go.  There was nothing in either of these jobs that was confusing to me because I had worked for my Father in a grocery store and did these two jobs there all the time when I was growing up.  The fifth day I was put in the position of a Supply Unit Leader Trainee.  This was a new experience to me because I had never supervised anyone to do these jobs.  I had a lot of line experience in crew supervision and my two trainers told me it was the same thing I just needed to make the assignments and make sure they got done.  I worked as a trainee the rest of the fire and when the team went home they left me there as the Supply Unit Leader for the team that took it over to close it out.

The next year the IC picked me as one of the two Supply Unit Leaders assigned to his team.  I look at the training I got compared to the training required today to be qualified for this position and I am amazed that I got through it so easily.  Ever since this first fire I have felt that I personally could do more for the fire suppression effort in Supply than anywhere else on the fire.  I loved the job and stayed at it for twelve years.  I worked with some of the most gifted people in the world while I was doing this job.  Everyone on every fire knew me because they depended on me to get what they needed.  I knew most of their faces but never got all of their names down.  This was a period of my life where I got to train up a grundle of new Supply Unit Leaders---I had a ball and loved them all.

This takes me through the first 28 years of fire---there are 16 more to come someday.  

LOVED THIS PERIOD OF MY FIRE CAREER.  HAD SOME CLOSE CALLS AND LEARNED A LOT---TRULY LOVE THE PEOPLE OF FIRE!!!!! 

BLACK FOREST---BURNT FOREST---'TIS THE SAME

 PACKIN' TO LEAVE

 SUPPLY AT IT'S BEST

 NEW CATERER SET UP AND READY TO SERVE

 DAY 5 BREAKFAST AT 5:00

 ALL PACKED AND READY TO GO

 STORM COMIN' IN---AGAIN

 THE IC---CUT 'N' PASTE IS ALWAYS FUN

 MUSINIA PEAK ON THE WAY HOME

 MY CARD FROM A LITTLE 3 YEAR OLD GIRL

MY FIRE TENT ON THE LAWN ALL SET UP---MY GRAND DAUGHTER AND HER MOTHER SLEPT IN IT THE FIRST NIGHT I WAS HOME!!!  ;-)

I was gone from the 12th of June until the 22nd of June on the 12,480 acre Black Forest fire right out of Colorado Springs.  They made me fly out to the fire but I rode home with a man from Tropic that was on the fire and was allowed to drive.  I was really glad he was wiling to let me ride with him because it feels better to me and it saves a lot of money for a one way ticket.

I was pretty excited to go because I thought I was going to be assisting a woman I have been fire friends with for over 25 years.  When I got there I found out she was in London and I was going to have the Logistics Section alone.  That doesn't mean all alone as I had two facilities unit leaders and a trainee, two supply unit leaders, two ground support unit leaders, one communications unit leader and a communications tech., and a security manager that worked for me.  There were also some equipment managers, base camp managers,  radio operators and an incident communications manager and two camp crews in the section.  After a couple of days an additional logistics section chief showed up to help me run the section.

This was the fire that had the heaviest law enforcement presence of any fire I have ever been on.  We had 120 National Guard M.P.'s doing the road blocks and at the height of the fire we had 100 police officers (deputy Sheriff's and City Police) that were working the fire.  The reason for such a large law enforcement group is that last year looters got into a fire area near this one and stole a lot of personal belongings of the people that were evacuated.  It is really sad to me that this is necessary but I am glad we had that kiond of support.  I am not aware of any looting that took place.

On the third day we had a logistics chief's worst nightmare occur.  The caterer we had in place had a lot of equipment fail and was unable to provide timely meals for the firefighters so he requested he be replaced.  This made it so we had to provide Dinner, Breakfast and lunches without a caterer on site.  This is a very difficult thing to do with over 850 firefighters in camp.  We got authorized to purchase the meals from a conglomerate of local restaurants but we had to serve the meals ourselves.  It turned out good when all of the Operations Section and the IC showed up and served.  That was a nice touch and the firefighters all thought that was pretty neat.  We made it through the three meals without having to serve MRE's so things turned out OK and the new caterer was able to get set up and operate well for the duration of the incident.

This fire had the greatest monetary loss of structures of any Colorado fire.  We lost a few more than 500 structures but it could have just as easily been 2,000.  We lucked out and got  a tiny bit of rain on the third and fourth days (0.03 inches each day) which was just enough so that we could safely take out the head of the fire and secure the flanks.

PUTTING THIS FIRE OUT WAS AN AWESOME WIN IN ANYBODY'S BOOK!!!