Fire Key

Fire Key

Like pimples and children, fires come in a variety of shapes and sizes. To introduce each fire—hint at the sameness, the disparity—I’ve attached some basic information to each. 

Location: WE ARE HERE

Duration: Day of Melon - Day of Dog

Tactics: Suppression vs. Fire Use

Suppression: These are fires which are actively suppressed by fire personnel (lots of line digging, helicopters dropping water, excess fuels being burned), usually because they pose some threat to people or property. They tend to employ a range of different firefighters (engines, handcrews, hotshots, helitack), who all usually return at night to a main fire camp. However, suppression resources are expected to remain fully mobile, which means that, while crews throw down at fire camp for the night, all gear is packed and stowed come morning. These fires are generally larger and receive more attention than fire use fires.

Fire Use: These are fires where the objective is not to actively stop the fire, but rather to manage it. Fire is a natural phenomenon which burns excess dead and downed fuels and helps forests to regenerate. Large and uncontrollable fires often occur in areas where fires have, over the years, been heavily suppressed; because these lands where never permitted to burn, they are greatly overgrown and offer a lot of burnable materials. The idea behind fire use fires is to allow fires to clean up an area and thereby prevent later, more catastrophic fires. Of course, the fire use method is not employed in heavily populated areas where people’s property could be impacted; for this reason, most of the fires that are managed are in wilderness areas, and crews commonly working on them are wildland fire modules (formerly fire use modules) and occasionally smokejumpers.

Size: Large, medium, small

Fires, or “incidents,” are classified as Type I through Type V, with a Type I being the largest and Type V the smallest. A single tree torching, for instance, is a Type V incident. Thousands and thousands of acres burned, houses threatened, people evacuated: Type I incident. The bigger the incident, the more hierarchal the set up. Type I and II incidents are overseen by Wildland Fire Management Teams—a unit of firefighters who fill the rolls of Incident Commander, Operations, Logistics, etc. Teams are specifically trained to step into a large fire, bringing with them qualified personnel and an organized infrastructure. On these bigger incidents, fire camps become like mobile cities with the same needs and problems; camp crud can take out whole crews and you should never, NEVER touch the railing up to the food trailer. Teams (which some firefighters like and others decidedly do not) are supposed to make sure that everything from getting crews their supplies to disseminating tactical information to getting everyone fed gets done quickly and efficiently. Which yes, sometimes happens.

Fuels: Brief description of environment—desert, sub-alpine, pinyon-juniper, etc.

Highs: Queuing up in the dark for the food trailer with little anticipation for the convict-prepared dinner, only to be startled by the change of caterers. And the steak-with-mushrooms they’re serving. And the sudden appearance of chocolate milk in the food tent. Small wonders. (Ridge Top Fire)

Lows: Our thirteenth day and they’re straight up telling us it’s going to be shitty: brushing bushes with chainsaws in 80 degree heat to create a seven foot wide line in an area too steep for dozers. Two hours in, and my sawyer almost cuts my hand off. Oh, happy days. (Pinyon Fire)

Photos 1. Pinyon Fire (suppression tactics) on the Salt Lake City National Guard Base 2. Moose Creek Fire (fire use tactics) in the Nez Perce National Forest Wilderness 3. Small fire camp on the Ute Rez