Fire

Sometimes, I ask myself why I am committed to halting the warming of the earth. One reason may be that I fought forest fires. We now have 5 times as many wildland fires as we did in the 70s. The rule of thumb is that for every 1-degree C or 1.8-degree F rise, the risk of fires goes up 4 times. Today, we have exceeded 1-degree C warming and the fire statistics back up the scientist’s predictions.

These are numbers. Do they have an emotional impact on me? “No”.

When Teri and I visited the National Climate and Atmospheric Research Center, NCAR, we watched a video on forest fire fighting. One female scientist is working to predict fire localized wind shifts. If she can predict wind shifts this would give firefighters a means to avoid getting trapped. A tragic example of fire fighters being unable to anticipate wind shifts was the Yarnell Hill Wildfire that killed 19 young fire fighters of the Granite Mountain Hot Shots. They were trapped in the inferno when the winds unexpectedly shifted. Tears welled up in my eyes as we watched the video.

I have seen forest fire fighters in action. The helicopter pilot moves the fighters, the water, the supplies, and is often the eyes of the incident commander. We are often the, “old guy”, expected to be an observer who can give no non-sense advice.

When I first started fighting fires I was old but, not so wise. In fact, I remember my first fire where I was tasked to move some “hot shots” up the mountain to engage the fire. Hot Shots are the most rugged and well-trained troops in the US Forest Service ranks. As these men and women marched towards the fire, I was tempted to run out and grab them by their soiled yellow shirts and tell them they were going the wrong way!

In my fire seasons I have had more than a few tense moments as fires threatened towns, and smoke jumpers had to be evacuated in front of a threatening fire.

One time, a wind driven fire, was threatening a few homes northwest of Reno. I was, as is SOP, laying water on the flanking line when an unusual call came in. The incident commander asked me to move quickly to the head of the fire to assist a bulldozer driver cutting line in an attempt to save some homes. When I got there the fire had reached him as he was ploughing burning earth.  Flames singed the left side as I plastered him and his dozer with a few hundred gallons of water? The daring bull dozer driver was successful, and the homes were saved.

These memories of success cheered me, but more memories slowly became visible in my mind’s eye, as if they were emerging shapes through the smoke.

One is, I am sure, an emotional feeling that all helicopter pilots have fighting fires. At the end of the day, after supporting the fire fighters, there is a time when you either time out, or you run out of daylight. It is time to cease operations. Since the adrenaline is usually running strong, the pilot is ready to keep up the effort but common sense, and the law, both tell you it is time to turn your helicopter over to your mechanic.

I never felt good leaving a young gal or guy on the mountain. They had been pounding out a fire line with a Pulaski all day. Their next task, all night, was to guard the fire line. The pilots, and I am not complaining, could look forward to a hot meal, and a bed.

 The next memory is one I would rather forget. One day, during the fire season, I had time off to catch up on paperwork, and hangar housekeeping. Paper work wise, I needed some data at the operations center next door. I walked over to get it. Just ahead of me was the wife of the Captain of the fire fighter tanker plane. As I walked in, the tower aviation speaker was busy blaring out aircraft radio broadcasts from firefighting aircraft nearby. Just then, an emotional call came in.  The wings of the tanker had just snapped off during the Captain’s fire-retardant bombing run.  I still hear his wife’s screams.

When someone says,” Climate Change is a hoax.” Do I take that personally as a dangerous lie? Or, when the administration attempts to cut money needed to study the science of wind and wildland firefighting, do I take this personally? “Yes, I do.”