Ask the wildland firefighter

[Raguleader]

@HellsBreezeway

It looks like the PBS documentary was about the Arrowhead Hotshots. I would like to find that on DVD… Look for Firestorm with Howie Long, the ex-NFL star, if you’re interested in a relentlessly stupid portrayal of every aspect of firefighting.

Well, there’s a movie starring Kirk Cameron called Fireproof which shows how a firefighter has to turn to God to save his marriage. Or something like that, I generally haven’t taken him seriously since he became a sidekick for the guy who fellated the banana on the internet to prove that bananas were proof of Creationism. Saw it for sale at the PX today, looked at it in curiosity, then went to go buy a toothbrush.

Rumor at my district was that the gum in MREs is a laxative, do you know anything about that? Probably a weird urban legend, but I stayed away from it.

I’ve heard that rumor, but I’ve never tested it. Though now I’m tempted to collect the little packets of gum from 40 packs of MREs to see if it’s enough to make me King of the Porcelain Throne. No, better idea, I should collect the little packets of gum from 40 packs of MREs and convince one of the stupid airmen in the dorm that it will get them drunk

When we had the MREs in Basic, we weren’t allowed to chew the gum. Nor were we allowed to keep anything from the MREs with us throughout the day, including the toilet paper. Who knows what shenannigans a trainee could get into if he could carry toilet paper with him? (Incidentally, most of us came down with some sort of cold or other, and had a case of the permasniffles. Our instructors must have developed an immunity to the Barracks Crud.)

Current MREs tend to include more fiber than the older ones, usually in the form of little packets of wheat bread or something along those lines, in response to input from the troops (read: Tens of thousands of soldiers bitching about not being able to take a crap in the field without fear of having an aneurysm)

There are pretty much a lot of weird and goofy stories about the rations though, my favorite being that they include something which makes guys impotent (because it’s weird that a dude would be unable to pop even an occasional chubby while surrounded by 50+ other dudes in close quarters being shouted at to move faster by an insane guy in a smokey the bear hat)

Yeah, trail mix is key, I must have gone through about fifteen pounds of nuts last season. I found chocolate chips beat M&Ms. The sugar coating on M&Ms started to bother me after a while. I became a master of the art. The most important things are enough raisins and not too much chocolate.

But yeah.

Oh, I prefer an a mix of just raisins and peanuts (it’s not called "Good Ol’ Raisins, Peanuts, and M&Ms, after all, or else the acronym wouldn’t work.) Sometimes I will throw in some chocolate, but yeah, you really don’t want a lot of chocolate if you’re doing any activity that traditionally involves lots of moving around, I’d think.

When I was studying Chinese, I was infamous for always having some kind of snack food sitting on my desk. Usually it was a glass jar of peanuts (they just taste better than the ones in the plastic jar:p) or a jar of peanut butter, but for a while, I had a gallon-size carton of Goldfishes, in honor of which I translated the Goldfishes ditty into Mandarin (easier than you’d expect it to be, actually:D).

[Karyn]

@Duckster

Some community meetings can get quite heated (pun intended) because when its your house that may burn, you really want specific information right now. The biggest pain in the ass at these meetings are the media. They all too often spin current fire information for their own ends (think ratings). At the same time fire officials need the media to get the word out.

The local media was useless during our evacuation. They kept showing human interest stories over and over and terrifying video clips and photos but couldn’t even tell us the general direction that it was burning in or even what areas had been evacuated after the initial orders. (They only had the photos because one of their photographers lives out here and was helping to save a neighbors house until the volunteer FD got there.) Most people understood why the firefighters themselves don’t have time to do frequent updates, and most of us preferred that they focused on fighting the fire than telling us about it all day but there were a few jerks. We got all of our info from a guy with a ham radio who posted it in the blog section of a local paper, and from mountain bikers who could get up higher to see where the fire was.

[whiterabbit]

This is such a small area that once things really got going the local paper, which normally publishes twice a week, was putting out daily updates. There is a lame local channel which I never watch but I know they were covering things as well. There were evening community meetings every couple of days at the elementary school as well; we had 1700 firefighters on the ground at the height of the thing and I guess they felt they could spare the top people for an hour or two to let us know what was going on.

And they were getting standing ovations at the meetings! To say we were grateful was an understatement.

I wasn’t evacuated; in fact, I could see where they had the main camp from the building I lived in at the time, so I figured if that’s where they put them it was probably a relatively safe spot, but I knew people who were.

[Santo_Rugger]

@HellsBreezeway

I was lucky to find a full-time fire job last season. Seems pretty tough to break in. Were you not interested in working full-time, or did that just not pan out? I spent about four days running supplies for a fire camp before my red card came through. That was fun work but frustrating because I wanted to be fighting the fire.

It was fun yet frustrating for me, also. I wanted to be on the line, too, but the biggest frustration is that 60% of the people on my crew were pretty worthless.

When I took the classes, I was a college student working full time at an explosives testing range. They wouldn’t have minded if I was out for a couple weeks in the summer on a fire, but I wouldn’t have gotten the experience I needed for future endeavors. During the school year, I couldn’t have taken the time off, so being on a reserve crew was perfect for me. It was really cool, I bought some really nice Hathorns. Those Vibram soles are pretty sweet.

Thanks for the info about the weather, Duckster.

HellsBreezeway, if your crew is ever going to be in central or Northern New Mexico, you should look me up. I’ll buy you a couple beers, too.

[St.Urho]

@Quercus

1. I talked to an (urban) EMT a few years ago who, to my surprise, identified with and liked cops much more than firemen. Thought the fire guys just sat around all day, wheras the cops were actually useful in keeping him from being shot at.

It’s not uncommon for there to be tension between Fire and EMS. If you want to know more, we can talk about it here.

St. Urho
Paramedic

[St.Urho]

@HellsBreezeway

Answered by PM, don’t think I want to out my crew on here.

Thanks! I think you’re going to have a great fire season

[HellsBreezeway]

@Raguleader

Current MREs tend to include more fiber than the older ones, usually in the form of little packets of wheat bread or something along those lines, in response to input from the troops (read: Tens of thousands of soldiers bitching about not being able to take a crap in the field without fear of having an aneurysm)

The wheat bread packets crack me up because they’re shaped into “loaf of bread” cross-section.

@Karyn

The local media was useless during our evacuation. They kept showing human interest stories over and over and terrifying video clips and photos but couldn’t even tell us the general direction that it was burning in or even what areas had been evacuated after the initial orders. (They only had the photos because one of their photographers lives out here and was helping to save a neighbors house until the volunteer FD got there.) Most people understood why the firefighters themselves don’t have time to do frequent updates, and most of us preferred that they focused on fighting the fire than telling us about it all day but there were a few jerks. We got all of our info from a guy with a ham radio who posted it in the blog section of a local paper, and from mountain bikers who could get up higher to see where the fire was.

That must have been tough. The Incident Command System nominally includes a “public information officer” if the incident is large enough, but I don’t know how that works in practice. Duckster might know more about this if he checks back in.

@Santo_Rugger

It was fun yet frustrating for me, also. I wanted to be on the line, too, but the biggest frustration is that 60% of the people on my crew were pretty worthless.

When I took the classes, I was a college student working full time at an explosives testing range. They wouldn’t have minded if I was out for a couple weeks in the summer on a fire, but I wouldn’t have gotten the experience I needed for future endeavors. During the school year, I couldn’t have taken the time off, so being on a reserve crew was perfect for me. It was really cool, I bought some really nice Hathorns. Those Vibram soles are pretty sweet.

Thanks for the info about the weather, Duckster.

HellsBreezeway, if your crew is ever going to be in central or Northern New Mexico, you should look me up. I’ll buy you a couple beers, too.

Yeah, fire season is an awkward period of time. It doesn’t fit well with school. I was trying to start grad school this fall, but there was about a month of overlap and I couldn’t work it out. I think especially with shot crews it’s tough to get a student spot–at least in my experience.

Were you on a Type II crew that just happened not to get fire duty, or do they maintain crews specifically for support positions? State or private? Too bad about your worthless coworkers… those things seem somewhat unpredictable. My forest had an ad-hoc Type II crew that I heard some real horror stories about.

About the boots, yeah, my Nicks are the best $350 I ever spent.

There’s a good chance I’ll be heading through NM on my way back to the east coast when the season ends. I’ll look you up for sure.

And St. Urho, thanks. My supe and foreman sound like great guys and I’m really pumped about this season.

[Darth_Sensitive]

All I know about wilderness firefighting I learned from Ranger Stations at National Parks:

Do you have any interest in smoke jumping? What do you think about that as a job - are they as crazy as the job description makes them sound like they are?

Also, I’m sure it’s not the preferred term, but it’s what I’ve heard them called: shake and bake bags. Are they essentially a sleeping bag/tenty thing made out of space blanket material like they were described to me? Do you all carry them, and if so, how much faith do you have in them to work if needed?

[HellsBreezeway]

@Darth_Sensitive

Do you have any interest in smoke jumping? What do you think about that as a job - are they as crazy as the job description makes them sound like they are?

Also, I’m sure it’s not the preferred term, but it’s what I’ve heard them called: shake and bake bags. Are they essentially a sleeping bag/tenty thing made out of space blanket material like they were described to me? Do you all carry them, and if so, how much faith do you have in them to work if needed?

Smokejumping would be great but it’s not in the cards for me. The training is more extensive and in general a lot of experience is required. Jumpers are pretty hardcore, for sure–when they’re done working they frequently pack out 100+ lb. loads to the nearest pickup spot. I’ve met one ex-jumper, the father of a friend. He said that part of training was jumping out of the bed of a pickup moving 25 mph to practice landings. As they jumped, someone in the truck would yell out which side they should roll on when they hit.

Jumpers and hotshots are very different and they do different jobs. Jumpers are an initial attack resource for areas too remote for engines, which is why a lot of them work in Alaska and Montana. They fight small fires and work in groups of 2-10.

Hotshot crews are a special type of hand crews, which mostly perform extended attack on big fires. They do the hardest and highest priority jobs, e.g. burnouts to improve control lines. The crew of 20 almost always travels and works as a unit. When hotshots tell people what they do, they are invariably asked if they jump out of planes.

As a hotshot crew member, I would never say that smokejumpers are more badass, but they are pretty badass.
People generally just say “fire shelter.” Yeah, they are made of laminated foil and fiberglass and shaped like a small tent, and designed to reflect radiant heat and preserve a pocket of breathable air. (Deaths in burnovers are usually caused by airway damage.) The shelters aren’t made to withstand direct flame contact, so something like a roadside or clearing is required for a deployment site. If there’s time, you can use your hand tool to improve your site; deploying in groups is also helpful if possible. Shelters have saved many lives although they’re not infallible.

Here’s a pretty intense video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0lAtZVPiv4

[Karyn]

@HellsBreezeway

That must have been tough. The Incident Command System nominally includes a “public information officer” if the incident is large enough, but I don’t know how that works in practice.

They did have one and I thought he did a good job. He gave briefings twice a day but some people seemed to think that they should get one every 15 minutes. The fire started near a populated area (which up here means that there are more than 10 houses in a square mile) and then moved into steep wooded terrain. Other than telling us what general direction it was moving in and posting the fire maps there weren’t a lot of details to tell us. There are no roads as reference points back there and GPS coordinates aren’t meaningful for most people. On the other side of the mountain is more densely populated with smaller parcels and the main focus was to keep it from spreading in that direction. It’s really hard for people to be reasonable when they’re so worried. The sheriff’s deputies took the brunt of the stress because they were manning the barricades and the public information area.