I was born into the Forest Service and was exposed to fire early on. My dad was a Hotshot and eventually a division chief in California. As a kid he would occasionally lets me in my brothers join in on some of the training sessions and even let us help put out hot spots after a fire on a family friend's homestead.
My first professional fire experience was over this last summer in the Deschutes National Forest on the Crescent Ranger District. I was a reserve (worked as a Wildlife Tech) and we got called out for a small lightning strike fire in the mountains. We had to hike in about 1.5 miles, where we found the fire. It was less than a tenth of an acre in size, mostly creeping with small flare ups in the denser brush piles. The terrain had a very shallow duff layer and covered with small fuels (twigs and pine needles) and since we arrived in time and there was no breeze to help the fire grow we were able to dig a line around the fire before it could start catching on larger fuels.
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