Meet the wildland firefighters risking it all

I really like my job. It's exciting. We're all a little bit of adrenaline junkies. Don't let anybody lie to you. We should hang out, have some coffee in the morning, wake up a little bit. Oh, I got coffee. Seth and John and myself will go over with everybody what our plans are for the day, what we need to work on, and then we'll send everybody out here to do engine checks, making sure all of our mechanics are good, all of our tools are good to go, chainsaws, hose, fittings, everything's ready to rock. We do get a fire. As simple as doing project work, cleaning up around the shop. There's just all sorts of different things we do throughout the day. We're not sitting in a cubicle every day. We're out in the woods either doing cutting projects, collecting fuels, training. My truck's always packed. You know at the spur of the moment I could next thing you know be gone for two weeks. Tent, clothing, even food and water. You're usually committing for 14 days and so when we roll up on scene more than likely I'll I'll take command of the fire. All units please acknowledge. And then situation dependent, I might have Riley in charge of one of the flanks of the fire. It's just dirty. It's burning, it's not wet out. The dust is just horrendous. Just everything you touch is dirt. Your lunch is dirt, everything's dirt. Yeah, sleeping in the dirt sometimes really sucks, especially when it gets really cold. Sleeping outside at 16 degrees is not fun. If you're in the area and it's a hundred degrees during the day, It's impossible to sleep in a tent. Sometimes you decide whether you're going to eat dinner or shower. I grew up in a family business, so working around family is just normal. But I'm so fortunate as a dad to get to do it with my son. So that was a huge influence growing up, watching him be gone for weeks at a time. That was the first time the three of us left out of state together on a fire assignment. And that one sticks in my head. I was, I don't know, wholesome, I guess maybe is the word. And Al, their dad, is a local plumber in town. He said, "Hey, you want a job?" I said, yep, I'll work for you. So then that's when I got to know the Stephens family. Fell in love with the plumber's daughter. So she grew up with it. She grew up with her dad gone all the time, and so she knew what she was getting into. All right, love you, bye. It takes toll on families. You see a lot of firefighters that are getting divorced just because they're gone all the time, and yeah, you gotta find the right woman like I did. For me, I had a kid in January, so I was just trying to juggle my wife and my son and try to still have family time, but still commit a lot of time to this job. Ever first started dating, we sat down and talked. I told her that I'm gonna be gone and busy. I'm not gonna answer the phone all the time. She's been awesome about it. We haven't had any issues. I just try to make sure I make time for her and skip when I can. They're a part of the team. They're just as much in it as anybody else. They gotta hold down the fort and take care of everything at home. We wouldn't be able to do it without them. In some summers, it's just, you're just gone. You get home for a couple days, you pack out. You miss a lot of stuff. I missed a lot of their birthdays. My kids understand that mom likes what she does and they're proud of what I do. We had a fire here a couple years ago that wasn't far away from where I was living. My kids looked at me and said, it's okay, it's okay. We don't have to worry, they're there. They're doing what they need to do. They're doing their job. We spend more time here than we do at home through the summer 12 hour days six days a week it's just one big family we mess around with each other a lot and we make each other sibling mad and it's a bunch of type A personalities she's gonna butt heads it just did happen the teaching element in developing firefighters 18 19 years old is really fun you're not just teaching them how to be firefighters it's really taking young men and women and turning them into adults too it takes literally the whole nation to try to put out these fire sometimes everyone in this office actually volunteers on the local fire department there's a lot of days on your day off we're still responding to fires car wrecks all sorts of stuff like that everybody pulls together no matter what color your truck is no matter what your logo is no matter what your hat says on it you're all on one team in the wildland firefighting world it's really old school you know neighbor helping neighbor thing even if neighbor helping neighbor means the neighbor is four states away. I try to take this job serious because ultimately this is your life. So this job can kill you. They kill firefighters every year, all over the nation. Small town. I mean, we knew him well. His father was our football coach in middle school. John, our FMO, that was his twin brother. For us, that one hits home. Well, it's just, I mean, reality hits when it's local and it's your brother, it's like, ooh. Travis Haskowitz was killed on the Coal Canyon Fire in August 11, 2011. Right after my brother's incident out there, passing away, they kind of said, you're not going to come back to fire. And I said, yes, I'm going back to fire. I mean, it could happen to any one of us any time, but that's just what you accept. You try to train and do everything in your power not to be in that position, but it does happen. If you're going to worry about that, that's all you're going to do. And my wife, she don't worry about them. She says, if something happens, it happens. out of our control so you know you just got to deal with the aftermath so i just got goosebumps you gotta try to stay calm you might be nervous underneath there are times where i gotta just stop just like not answer phones radios and just take a deep breath i wouldn't say adrenaline doesn't still hit you like the more you do it but it doesn't hit you as hard as like a brand new guy you're not your hands aren't shaking you know we'll have our panic moments right there's sometimes you just have to walk away and take a deep breath real quick or you know but then everybody just turns around and gets back into it because we have a job to do and all of us are here because we have this sense of duty and service that i think runs through our veins so deeply that it's never going to leave us that is the cool thing of fires if you need help you just ask and people are lined up to help you out yeah you got to make sure you take care of your folks but when other people are going out because it's not safe our folks that are trained and have their PPE on are going in and to me that kind of defines hero and i do social media posts about the stuff that they do one of the most common words i hear and read on there is heroes heroes heroes heroes my perspective on it is i'm young and able to do it it's a way to give back to your community it's a small town give back where you can well somebody's got to fill the truck