The Pleasures and Perils of Life as a Hotshot-2005: Part 1

**SherpaStyle** · 07-12-2005, 10:58 PM

3 months down, 3 to go. Brace yourselves, this is pretty ridiculously long...

Well, the summer has gotten off to a pretty slow start this year. It's hard to believe it's almost half over. May and June dragged on as we spent more time training in the gym and working in the rain than anyone should ever have to. We got on 2 little initial attack fires here in N Idaho this spring. The first was about 1/4 acre and occured on April 24th. Guess how long it took for a 20 person hotshot crew to control that... i think we had saw line and handline around it like 8 minutes or something.

Our second fire was on Memorial Day. We were all excited to have a four day weekend for Memorial Day, especially since it was the first nice weekend in 6 weeks. My roommate and I were a bit disappointed to get a call at 11:00 Sunday night saying we had to be at work at 4:30 the next morning. It turned out to be a pretty fun little fire. It was right on Lake Pend Oreille. We had to take a boat to get to it. It's hard to complain about having to work on a holiday when you're getting paid to do be here:
JohnsonPt

Eagle

After a few more weeks of project work, we finally got the call. Nevada. I still can't figure out why people would want to live there... Our first fire was about 15 minutes west of Las Vegas. It was a typical desert fire. Hot and dry. Out in three days.

Burnout- Goodsprings

Lewis and Clark Style- Goodsprings

We went on to Mesquite the next day, where it was hotter and drier. Morale was pretty low when we arrived in Mesquite and looked south of town to see a fire burning in the same drainage as a fire we were on last season. We recollected the assignment we were on just over a year ago and dreaded the days to come. We had spent 2 days digging line and "gridding the black" where the temperature was 106 in the shade, which was virtually non-existant. Two people experienced heat exhaustion and the rest of us weren't far behind.

Fortunately, our assignment was to go into the higher elevation problem area of the fire, where the max temps were only 95-100 versus the 108-110 degree lowlands. The fire kept us on our toes for most of the first day as we got our asses kicked the first couple attempts we made at corraling the beast. Finally, as we neared 18 hours on the clock the fire started to lose steam and we were able to take the upper hand through an extensive burn out operation that went into the wee hours of the morning.

Me all ramboed out ready to light some shit up- Hancock

Casey-hancock

Night burnout-Hancock Fire

The following days were spent finishing the burnout and mopping up the remaining hot spots once the fire had cooled down.

We headed back to Mesquite in anticipation of our next assignment. The national Resource Ordering System was down for most of the day, so we were stuck at a school wondering what would be our fate for most of the day. We finally got an order to go to a fire near Cedar City, UT. When we arrived on the incident we were disappointed to see that the only visible smoke on the 550 acre fire was well within the black and posed no threat. We spent four hours gridding the black (ie walking at a snail's pace with senses honed for any sight, smell, feel, or premonition of a smoke that lingered, awaiting it's chance to escape). After we were released from the Harrisburg fire we went to Cedar City where we spent the night and were told we would be staged until we were reassigned.

The following day we received orders to go back to Mesquite where we would be staged for the day in case any new fires started (it was 4th of July weekend; and with fires all over the Arizona Strip and southern Nevada it wasn't sensible to send us home before our 2 week roll was filled.)

Our next assignment was 3 hours north of Mesquite. We were all excited as we approached the Duzak fire and were greeted by Ponderosa pine and sage brush. I don't think I've ever been so relieved to see trees in my life. The first day was full of excitement as we got thrown into the jumble of a burnout operation that 2 other shot crews were conducting. The fire activity was intense as flames engulfed an area of thick regen in a matter of minutes shooting fire 80 feet into the air. It was a good reminder of the force behind forest fires.

Reflecting back on it, standing 30 feet away from a fire that was charging through the forest and demolishing all that lay in its path I felt safer than I had on any of the desert fires we were on in the previous days. Mostly because timber fire is more predictable and is less influenced by wind and more influenced by topography. Desert fire can overrun you in a matter of seconds if impacted by an unforeseen wind shift. Kinda scary shit...A heavy air tanker was called in to drop retardant on the fire to help keep it in check.

Duzak-Slurry

It did it's job and enabled us to dig direct fire line around the rest of the fire. With the help of 3 other shot crews, we completed the line that afternoon and had the fire contained within a couple hours. The next two days were spent gridding and ensuring the perimeter of the fire was secure and didn't have potential to reburn.

That pretty much sums up the beginning of my summer. I know it was long and I'm impressed if you made it through the whole thing, but I figure you probably don't have much better to do since there's no snow and TRs are hard to come by these days.

Part 2: Kings and Corn

**Lane Meyer** · 07-12-2005, 11:02 PM

Nice report, stay safe out there and keep 'em coming. As soon as it starts snowing again, I'll start posting TRs with snow in them....you're a pretty damn good photographer too, y'know.

**SherpaStyle** · 07-12-2005, 11:10 PM

Originally Posted by Lane Meyer

Nice report, stay safe out there and keep 'em coming. As soon as it starts snowing again, I'll start posting TRs with snow in them....you're a pretty damn good photographer too, y'know.

Thanks! I was pretty pissed about the retardant picture, b/c it was such a textbook shot and I screwed it up when I realized right as I snapped the picture that the plane was a lot closer than I thought, and I was about to get painted with retardant. Split second decision told me it was time to scrap the picture and start running.

**backpack** · 07-12-2005, 11:16 PM

I like this one best:

**Vets** · 07-12-2005, 11:33 PM

Great shots Hotshot! Will you be doing another calendar? My wife really likes the last one.

**bad_roo** · 07-13-2005, 03:15 AM

Stay safe, Liz! Looks scary to me, but to you it's probably old helmet.

**splat** · 07-13-2005, 03:43 AM

Sandpoint to Mesquite - absolute seperate ends of the scale.
I'd take Pend Orielle any day.

**Mrs Roo** · 07-13-2005, 04:44 AM

Amazing pics, Liz. Stay safe.

**Xover** · 07-13-2005, 06:46 AM

I'll second the amazing pics comment.
Thanks beyond words for all your hard work out there to keep us safe here in the Western U.S.
Also, thanks for taking the time to post a "T.R."
You're my new hero

**snowsprite** · 07-13-2005, 07:01 AM

I read it all and damn, you have a terrific job!

Apologies if you've already explained this, but how did you get into this field?

Sprite

**Pinner** · 07-13-2005, 07:07 AM

Great pics and a well-written narative.
Stay safe and Rambo on!

13 · 07-13-2005, 07:10 AM

You need to start making $$ on the side for them pics, dude.

Stay safe!

**baseWeldr** · 07-13-2005, 07:17 AM

fire shot madness, sweet pics... Thanks for the hot hard work out there....
smokejumper ted out of grangeville is a skibro, say hey if you see him
MT does this stuff too I thought
"grid the black" on... be safe

**Steezus Christ** · 07-13-2005, 07:43 AM

Wow

**Endlessseason** · 07-13-2005, 08:43 AM

Flame stoke TR! Who'd a thunk it? Great pics, SS!

**lemon boy** · 07-13-2005, 08:54 AM

Nice!

Had a couple beers last night with MT, they just got rotated off the Pagosa Springs fire and not onto Buelah.

**girlski0912** · 07-13-2005, 08:54 AM

Seriously cool TR! And I agree with SnowSprite that your job sounds super cool and by you TR, you are stoked to be doing it. Have a safe summer. I am sure that most of us would love to see and hear more when you get the chance!

**Stu Gotz** · 07-13-2005, 09:12 AM

"Wait a minute. I thought you said that you wanted me to light things on fire."

**watersnowdirt** · 07-13-2005, 09:19 AM

Very cool! Ditto all the others - stay safe. And keep the cool (no pun intended) pics coming!

**grrrr** · 07-13-2005, 09:57 AM

Very nice pics. Good to see things rolling for your crew. You made the right call on sticking with the shot crew as Wenatchee has been sloooowww so far. Have fun, maybe see you later this season (if it ever makes up to Region 6).