Learning the Meaning of a Sufferfest!

In life, your first experience doing something is often held near and dear to your heart, and is something that you never forget.  This is especially true when the learning curve is stacked against you.  Your first time riding a bike, skiing or snowboarding, or just that first year in college—there is often a certain crash, or feelings of frustration, or of that first all nighter spent chugging coffee and typing like mad to finish a paper that you often reminisce about. 

            My first year as a wildland firefighter was no different.  The learning curve figure out how to push past what you thought was your physical limitations or dealing with the stress of being in a foreign and hazard filled environment compared with the florescent lit retail mazes defined my previous line of work. One such experience that opened my eyes to just how demanding working as a wildland firefighter can be occurred late into my first season working for a contract handcrew on a fire just north of Riggins, ID.  The day was spent like most of that season working on a contract crew, mopping up already burned areas and gridding and feeling for things that were still hot or burning.  I had just been made to pack a chainsaw (mostly because I one of the few physically able to pack it) but being a back up sawyer meant that I carried it around more than I actually fired it up, and with little no training using it I was ok with that.  After returning from 16 hours of bending over, traversing steep slopes and picking up a 25 pound saw routinely, a hot meal in camp and our little patch of dusty ground was as close to a home as we had. 

Nighttime on the fireline

            However mid meal our crew bossed leaned of a burnout operation going on to save some structures in one division of the fire, and because contract crews work with a constant chip on there shoulder to be looked as equals compared to other hotshot and federal crews he was quick to volunteer us to help as a holding resource for the burn operation. When we got into place there was a pretty strong up canyon wind sending a shower of embers up the steep slope and over the small forest road that acted as the fire break.  With the cascade of embers providing a heat source and the strong winds fanning embers falling into the fine dead grass slopes, a “slop over“ (when the fire jumps the holding line) was just a matter of time.   When it started it was on  our crew to suppress it.  Having never cut line with a saw I was like a deer in the headlights the squad bosses did there best to direct me to what I should cut and off I went to work. Slowly I worked cutting the brush a small trees as it was now late probably 9 of 10 at night I was swinging, with only the light of my headlamp, around a chainsaw trying not to kill myself.  Fortunately there was not much to cut as we progressed out of the drainage into grass-dominated hills.   So I was told to stage the saw and start digging line. With one danger eliminated, the saw, a new one arose.  The moss above us started to burn letting go of its grasp on the decomposed granite that it had split apart sending football sized rocks down on us as we dug in the middle of the night. Working past that area we got the slop over ringed we were spread out for the rest of the night to monitor for roll out of burning material down the slope. So I spent the rest of the night sitting behind a tree as cover from the falling rock that continued through the night and trying to stay awake.  Then only to return to our dusty sun exposed patch of ground to try to sleep in the hot August sun just east of Hells Canyon!