*Intermission*
A Fire
The spring of 1981 in the Northern Rockies was a dry one, the forests had not had not felt moisture since the last snow fall in May and by early June the winter’s snows were gone. In the evening of June 29 a powerful thunderstorm rolled out of the west. Lois and I noticed the far off flashes against the dark clouds; about half a minute later the muffled thunder. It was about six miles away and, from the looks of it, the cloud would cover a big swath of the Ninemile District where I was the ranger.
We took a seat on the picnic table outside the kitchen door of the Ranger’s house at the Station to watch the show in the sky and it was a spectacular one. Down-strikes of lightning all along the ridges that form the boundary of the Ninemile drainage and further to the south. We watched it from the picnic table until dark came and the storm had spent its furious energy - and there was a lot of it. Through it all not a drop of rain fell on us, a dry lightning storm. There would be fire starts in the forest.
The next morning I met early with the district fire staff officer, the timber management officer, head engineer, minerals guy and recreation guy to map out a strategy for attacking the fires we knew would show up. All of the 140 people that worked at the ranger station would be on fire alert. Fire crews were held at the ranger station, timber crews, engineering crews, recreation and trail crews would be in constant radio contact and take fire tools with them so they could be dispatched to a fire from where they were working. Everyone, regardless of their regular duties, had fire training and were expected to fight fires when needed.
The lookouts were scanning the mountains looking for wisps of smoke and an aerial patrol plane was flying early to look for smokes. If we could get to every fire before it had a chance to get up and going in the heat of the day we’d have a chance to keep them small. Fire reports started coming into the District Fire Management Officer (FMO). The fires that appeared to be small and a crew could get to in a hurry got a crew of five. Bigger smokes or ones that would take hours to get to had up to ten people headed that way. Smoke jumpers were ordered on fires that were miles from a road. Loggers were contacted to send their bulldozers to fires where they could help the hand crews. On the Ninemile District we had 25 fires the lookouts had reported. By afternoon we had district timber crews, fire crews, brush disposal crews, trail crews, our hot-shot crew and smokejumper crews fighting all these fires trying to catch them before they got big. The ranger districts around us had similar situations.
By six p.m. I was feeling pretty good about our chances of keeping all the fires small. Reports from the crews were coming in, they had dug and held their fire lines through the day and would work through the night to strengthen lines. They had food and water to carry them through to the next day.
It was about then that Stark Mountain Lookout called in, Virginia spotted another fire on a shoulder of Ch-paa-qnQ Peak. Lookouts keep track of all the fires they can see and which ones have people on them, she thought it was unmanned and it was now putting up a big smoke.
At this point the Fire Management Officer (FMO) and I were the only two people on the District that were not on a fire, we’d been coordinating the whole thing. The FMO had to stay by the radio and phones to handle any emergency so I grabbed a radio and headed out to see what could be done on the Ch-paa-qn Peak fire. It took about an hour to get there. The fire was burning where there were a lot of old down trees on the ground, probably from a wind storm many years ago, there was also thick brush under the tall living trees so there was a lot of fuel. The fire would likely burn hot and spread all night. But maybe I could do something. There was a bulldozer at a logging operation about a mile from the fire. I radioed the FMO to see if he could contact the logging company and get a cat skinner to start building fire line. I had been scouting the fire to see how to fight it and I thought “cat line” could be built along the bottom of the fire to at least keep it from burning down the slope. The two sides of the fire and the upper edge were too steep for the bulldozer to work safely, it would take hand crews to stop the fire. It took a long time to get a cat operator, fuel, and lights to the bulldozer and “walk” it to the portion of the fire I wanted it to work. But, about midnight the cat was ready to build fire line.
Meanwhile, the FMO had called one of the crews off the fire they had been working. They’d leave two people on their fire and ten would come back to the ranger station for some food and then go to the Ch-paa-qn Peak fire. It was Charlie’s crew. Charlie was trail crew foreman and that day he had his trail crew plus district fire crew people, they were in shape.
I spent some time with the cat skinner telling him what I wanted done and flagged a line that he should work Then I started to scout the fire again flagging a line for hand crews where it would be effective to hold the fire. I flagged a line around the fire and was working my way back to where the cat was working when I first heard the chain saws, it was 2:00 am.
I had been in radio contact with Charlie, they were following my flagged line up the steep slope. Charlie, with his chain saw was in the lead. Working as close to the flames as the heat would permit, yellow reflecting off his hard hat and the sweat on his face, his huge arms inside the fire resistant shirt moving the heavy powerful chainsaw like a sword, graceful, every movement counts, logs collapse under assault, a swath six feet wide opens up. Charlie keeps moving. The saw behind him is cutting brush stems as big as your wrist with no pause in the motion. Forward movement is steady. Behind the second saw are two “chuckers” throwing the severed logs and brush to the outside of the fire line so those fuels it will never burn. Next are the pulaskis, chopping roots, tearing at the duff to expose soil and rocks. The lead pulaski digs until the guy behind tells him to “bump-up;” at that command he moves up 20 feet and digs way at the forest floor, the second pulaski works on that 20 foot space until it’s done then bumps up again, always, digging, moving forward. Behind the pulaskis the shovels scrape and clear the line wider and deeper to rocks and dirt until there is a line 18 inches wide within the six foot swath. There is nothing that will burn within the line. Team work, team work, team work - the line progresses through down logs and brush; up slopes too steep to be on; within a few feet of roaring flames. Nearby trees explode into candles throwing sparks like a rain shower. The “shovels” have to find any sparks outside the line and put them out, they throw shovels full of dirt on flames that threaten to jump the thin dirt line — that’s how the line holds, fire fighters hold it! This crew has been working at this level since the morning before, at least 16 hours and they still had a long way to go. They’d do it. By sunrise the fire was contained within a fire line. It would be days before it was out, but it was contained that night.
These people made a team, athleticism, commitment, dedication to a purpose, courage and the guts to keep going when there isn’t anything left to go on but guts — that’s a team no athletic game can compare to - and there is no TV sportscaster to give a score and say who was the star, no big salaries or endorsements, just government workers, dedicated people doing what they do, service to people and forests.
It was my privilege to work with many hundreds of these people through numerous days and nights over thirty years. I’m thankful for it, I hope I learned from them.
Jerry Covault
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