California Stars

Sometimes I look through these pics I take on fire assignments and lament that they are not very representative of the work we do. I'm often only pulling out my camera when there is some down time. When we are chasing a spot fire, lighting off hillsides during burnout operations, or even just hauling heavy loads up and down ridiculous slopes, the camera mostly stays nestled deep in my pack. It also stays there when we are stretched out on the ground, wrapped in space blankets, trying to catch a quick nap at 3AM, or when we are putting in huge amounts of highway and dirt road time (we have covered over 10,000 miles since I started here in mid-April). I often marvel at how strange and unpredictable my job can be, especially when I think of the jobs that most other 33-year-olds hold down here in the U.S.A. For example, the other day the radio crackled to life at around 3AM, saying the winds that'd kept us from lighting off a burnout since 6PM had died down. We woke up the few that were sleeping, grabbed drip torches, and ended up igniting a hillside until around 8AM. While snapping out of a fitful half-unconscious state was hard, it was still a good shift of work, especially once it got light out. The local newspapers had opinion columns by people angry about how much control efforts focused on burnouts (the smoke aggravated them, especially since most of these fires had been burning over a month). But really, in such steep, rocky terrain, there is no other option, and I have little sympathy for people who live in the American west but don't want to deal with the realities of the ecosystem, namely the need for and pervasiveness of fire for months on end during the summer. Ok, I'm going to step down off my soapbox, crack open a beer, and make dinner.