THE NITTY GRITTY OF BEING A FIRE FIGHTER

In my early days with the Forest Service we were called upon to fight fires with little choice in the matter, especially on our days off or after work hours from our regular job of doing timber sale preparation work, including marking trees, marking cutting boundaries, surveying and mapping harvest units and timber cruising.   On big fires or what was called project fires we were assigned a crew boss, who supervised up to 20 people doing a variety of jobs starting with people clearing brush with chain saws, next were people grubbing out a fire trail with Pulaski's, followed by people scrapping the fire line with hoes or Macleod's.  Sometimes people carried drip torches to burnout inside the fire line.   A squad boss was usually assigned to oversee each of these tasks, who also performed work with others in the squad.    We had to carry drinking water, food rations, first aid kits, fire shelters and a few personal items in our fire packs.  Some of us carried one gallon canteens of water as we could not have enough drinking water.    We were either assigned the day shift or night shift.  If we were part of the initial attack sometimes we worked both shifts until more people arrived.   Fire camps were set up in nearby communities, schools, fairgrounds or open fields.  These camps became like small cities with kitchen facilities serving food 24 hours a day, dinning areas, portable potties, shower units, tools supplies/repair area, sleeping areas, vehicle parking areas, fuel trucks, potable water trucks, sewage pump truck, repair/maintenance trucks and sometimes an ambulance with EMTs was made available.   The biggest challenge was trying to sleep with all the noise of activity that went on 24 hours a day.   These camps had their own security to make sure only authorized  people were coming and going in and out of the camp.   With more training and experience I became a squad boss.   After I became a timber sale contract administrator I was a falling and tractor boss supervising contractors and loggers assigned to fires.   

Some high points that I remember was eating those canned biscuits from the rations that reminded me of a tennis ball and even bounced like one.   Sleeping on the fireline was always a thrill at night when it got cold and we made a warming fire.   Then there was the constant danger of getting stung by hornets, but the most fearful memory was running out of toilet paper.   One thing for sure there was never a dull moment.