Just Another Wildland Firefighter

Lost a brother last night. Ill miss ya Ryan. It was a pleasure and a honor to fight wildfires alongside ya. The crew will miss you, and will always feel like something is missing. Rest In Peace. 

rest easy brother 3′bs Crew 1 has it from here. Don’t put out all the flames in hell, Leave some for us when we get there.

Lost a brother last night. Ill miss ya Ryan. It was a pleasure and a honor to fight wildfires alongside ya. The crew will miss you, and will always feel like something is missing. Rest In Peace. 

You spend months training, your anticipation builds more and more with each passing day, then your phone rings, it’s the fire office. Your heart races you grab your line pack and deployment bag, no time to eat, no time to go to bed. It’s 3am you have to be at the office in 15 minutes. You get in the car and race like a bat out of hell to the office. You meet up with your fellow fire brothers as they quickly arrive. Your anxiety is building, thoughts are racing, where is the fire, how big, how fast is it spreading, could this be my final call? You light up a cigarette to calm your nerves as the crew boss quickly briefs the squad bosses and drivers as to where we are going. Then you hear a ominous yell, “LOAD UP”. You pack into the vans like sardines and try to catch some sleep on the way there. Quickly you realize you can’t sleep and open your eyes to a van filled with cigarette smoke, the smell of stale popcorn the guy next to you brought and people just as excited and nervous as you. Soon enough everyone else is awake. The squad boss notices everyone is awake and nervous, “3'bs what is your profession!” He s “FIRE FIRE” we all reply the squad boss laughs. From that moment on we are blasting music as loud as the van will play. Moral going sky high. We arrive at fire camp. Line up for inspection. Load up on water sack lunches and gateraid. You haven’t slept in 48 hours yet you aren’t tired. You get told you are doing night shift your adrenalin starts to slowly enter your blood as you are headed to your division. You pound hotline in the ground after hiking for 4 miles. A burning tree falls within arms reach from you. Across the line cutting off your escape route. Adrenalin now in full force your heart racing like a v12 race car the saws get to work cutting your route free. Finally it’s break time after 6 hours of work, 10 minutes into the 15 minute break the fire crowns and is spreading from tree canopy to canopy. The fire is on 2 sides of you and above you and cuts your break short as you race up a hill that’s sloped about 45 degrees. Branches the size of small trees crash around you keep in mind the reasons they are called widow makers is because on hit from them would crack your skull and break your neck. You collapse at the top of the hillside into your safety zone then quickly stand up due to the dry ground bellow you is so hot the dirt is boiling under your feet. Everyone looks around and laughs after almost being killed. A few minutes pass and the hill you just ran up is engulfed in flames. The rest of the shift goes rather smoothly with the occasional wasp sting. Soon enough your 20 hour shift is over. You crawl inside your tent for some sleep. To realize you have another 13 days of this hellish heaven. Now for the hard part trying to sleep in the day time. Only your dreams and phone to remind you of your love back home. And with no phone signal all you have are your dreams to remind you of why you chose to be a wildland fire fighter.

Life of Wildland Firefighter. I love my job and would not trade anything for it.