How I Somehow Ended Up Fighting Wildland Fire

How I Somehow Ended Up Fighting Wildland Fire

Wildland fire was never really part of the plan.

Then again, I have learned that some of the most interesting things I have done in life were never part of the plan.

Most of my professional life has been spent bouncing between careers and interests that probably do not look like they belong together on paper. I spent years in construction. I worked as a mechanic and HVAC technician in the oilfield. I joined the military. Eventually, I moved into IT and software development.

And somewhere along the way, the Oklahoma National Guard put me in a yellow shirt and sent me into the woods.

That is how I ended up in wildland fire.

My Introduction to Wildland Fire

Before actually getting involved, my understanding of wildland firefighting was probably similar to a lot of people's.

There is a fire.

People show up.

They put it out.

That was about the extent of it.

I did not know much about Pulaskis, sawyers, engines, firing operations, aviation, incident management, or the ridiculous number of acronyms that come with all of it.

Once I got involved, I realized wildland fire is its own world.

It has its own qualification system, command structure, terminology, weather considerations, logistics, aviation operations, equipment, and culture.

The first time you hear people casually throwing around terms like FFT2, ICT5, FIRB, ENGB, DIVS, IA, ERC, Red Card, Haines Index, and Type 3, it sounds like somebody dumped a bowl of alphabet soup onto a fire map.

Eventually it starts making sense.

Mostly.

My Experience Is a Little Different

I should probably explain something before going much further.

I am not a full-time wildland firefighter.

My experience comes through the Oklahoma National Guard's wildland fire program.

We train and operate within the wildland fire system, but my experience is naturally going to look different from somebody who spends an entire fire season on a federal engine, hotshot crew, handcrew, or contract resource.

I think that distinction matters.

I have worked named incidents and prescribed fires. I have helped teach portions of FFT2 training. My FFT1 qualification was a joint effort between our program and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. I later attended S-290, Intermediate Wildland Fire Behavior, at Colorado Firecamp.

I have also had the opportunity to work on some of the less-visible parts of building a program, including helping develop SOPs and SOGs and working with aerial operations associated with the Guard's wildland fire response.

That gives me an interesting perspective.

I have enough experience to understand just how much there is to know.

I also have enough experience to know that I have a lot left to learn.

The Training Was More Involved Than I Expected

One of the first things that surprised me was how structured wildland qualifications are.

Coming from the military, I was used to a different kind of qualification process.

Generally, you attend a school, complete the required tasks, graduate, and now you are qualified to perform that job.

Wildland fire does not always work that way.

There are classroom courses, field exercises, physical fitness requirements, prerequisite qualifications, position task books, evaluations, and actual incident experience.

You can attend the school and understand the material, but that does not necessarily mean you are done.

For many qualifications, you still have to complete a task book and demonstrate those tasks in the field while being evaluated by someone who is already qualified.

That was different.

I started as a Firefighter Type 2, or FFT2, just like most people entering the operational side of wildland fire.

FFT2 is where you start learning the fundamentals: tools, safety, basic fire behavior, communications, handline construction, firing concepts, weather, and how to function as part of a crew.

Then you start getting experience.

Eventually, I qualified as an FFT1.

FFT1 is still a firefighter position, but it comes with more experience and responsibility. You may help with leadership, communications, navigation, firing operations, and helping less-experienced firefighters understand what is happening around them.

Getting there also made something else obvious.

There is no end to the rabbit hole.

The Qualification Rabbit Hole

Once you start looking at the wildland qualification system, there are a ridiculous number of directions you can go.

Engines.

Handcrews.

Saw operations.

Firing.

Aviation.

Dispatch.

Logistics.

GIS.

Safety.

Heavy equipment.

Water handling.

Incident command.

Fire behavior.

And that variety is one of the things I like most about it.

I have a lot of experience outside of wildland fire too.

I am currently a software developer, and I often wonder how I can use those skills to contribute to the wildland fire community.

I will happily grab a tool and cut line.

But I also catch myself thinking:

What else can I bring to this?

That question has become more interesting the more I learn.

S-290 was a good example.

Fire Behavior Changes How You Look at the Outdoors

S-290 probably reinforced this for me more than anything else.

Once you start seriously studying fire behavior, you stop looking at the outdoors the same way.

Wind is no longer just "windy."

You start thinking about where it is coming from, where it is going, how terrain is affecting it, whether it is expected to shift, and what happens if it does.

Grass is not just grass.

You notice whether it is green or cured.

You look at slopes differently.

You notice drainages, ridgelines, saddles, chimneys, roads, aspect, fuel continuity, and places where fire might move differently than you initially expect.

Weather apps suddenly become much more interesting.

Relative humidity matters.

Fuel moisture matters.

Atmospheric stability matters.

And so does the difference between what the weather station says and what is actually happening where you are standing.

Eventually, you start looking at a perfectly normal piece of terrain and asking yourself:

What would fire do here?

Training Is One Thing. Fire Is Another.

Classroom training is important.

Field training is important.

Prescribed fire is important.

But an actual incident adds another layer.

I have had the opportunity to work named incidents as part of the Guard's response, and one of the first things you realize is that wildland firefighting is not constant action.

There can be a lot of travel, briefing, staging, scouting, waiting, hiking, prep work, monitoring, and coordination.

Then something changes.

Maybe the wind changes.

Maybe another fire starts.

Maybe you get reassigned.

Maybe you catch another IA.

Suddenly everything gets busy.

Working in southeast Oklahoma really drove that home for me.

We could go available at 0800 knowing there was a good chance things would not really start moving until later in the day.

Then the afternoon would show up.

New fires would start popping.

You might catch a couple initial attacks, help mop up another fire, move somewhere else, and suddenly you are wondering whether you are bedding down at midnight, 0100, or 0200.

It can be a different style of firefighting than what you might picture out West.

You may have more fires with shorter individual assignments instead of spending days committed to one large incident.

Neither one is easy.

They are just different.

And in either case, you need to be physically ready and mentally ready to go from almost nothing happening to working immediately.

Prescribed Fire Teaches You a Lot Too

Some of my experience has also come through prescribed fire.

Prescribed fire is obviously different from responding to a wildfire, but it gives you a chance to actually watch fire behavior under controlled conditions.

You can see how fire reacts to fuels.

You can watch what slope does.

You can see what happens when wind changes.

You can watch different ignition patterns interact.

You can see backing fire, flanking fire, and head fire behave differently.

And you start connecting all those classroom concepts to actual flame on the ground.

That has been a big part of my development.

Teaching Makes You Learn It Again

I have also had the opportunity to help teach portions of FFT2 training.

The last couple of years, our program has incorporated a burn operation into the training so students can see and react to real fire.

They get experience cutting handline, working hose, and participating in firing operations in a controlled environment.

I went through that process as an FFT2.

Then, in later classes, I was one of the people helping facilitate it.

That has been valuable.

Teaching forces you to understand things differently.

It is one thing to know what to do.

It is another thing entirely to explain why you are doing it to somebody who has never done it before.

Then somebody asks a question you were not expecting.

That is usually where you find out whether you actually understand the subject or whether you just memorized the answer.

Helping teach has probably contributed just as much to my own development as it has to the people I was helping train.

There Is More to a Fire Program Than Firefighting

One part of my experience that I did not really expect was getting involved with some of the program-development side of wildland fire.

I have helped work through SOPs and SOGs for our program.

That means thinking beyond the immediate fire.

How do we operate?

Who is responsible for what?

How do we standardize training?

How do we integrate with other agencies?

How do we make sure everyone is working from the same playbook?

I have also had the opportunity to work with the aviation side of the Guard's wildland response.

And that has been one of the more interesting parts for me.

Calling for bucket drops, working around aircraft, understanding what they can and cannot do, and figuring out how ground resources and aviation work together is a whole different skill set.

My military background gave me some aviation experience already.

As an infantryman in Afghanistan, I worked around aircraft plenty.

Wildland fire aviation is different.

I have been able to train with Chinook and Black Hawk crews during fire-response exercises, call in bucket drops, and then sit down with those crews afterward for AARs.

That part is incredibly useful.

You get to hear what the pilots and crews saw from the air while you were on the ground asking for a drop in a certain location.

Sometimes what seems obvious from the ground looks completely different from the aircraft.

Being able to compare those two perspectives makes everyone better.

It Is Also Hard Work

There is a romanticized version of wildland firefighting that looks great in pictures.

Mountains.

Helicopters.

Flames.

Sunsets.

Dirty Nomex.

And yes, sometimes it really does look like that.

What those pictures do not show nearly as well is carrying gear when it is ridiculously hot, breathing smoke, drinking an unreasonable amount of water, getting covered in dirt, and realizing you still have a long way back.

It is physical work.

And I think that is part of why I enjoy it.

My normal work involves sitting in front of a computer writing software.

Wildland fire is almost the complete opposite.

Instead of staring at code, I am looking at terrain.

Instead of debugging software, I am trying to understand weather and fire behavior.

Instead of wondering why a button will not center correctly on a webpage, I am wondering what the wind is doing on the other side of a ridge.

Both can be frustrating.

Only one usually involves smoke.

But that difference between my two worlds is also what has me thinking about where I fit into wildland fire long term.

I do not imagine there are too many fire crews carrying around a software developer.

I will happily cut three miles of handline if that is the assignment.

But I also wonder if I have more to contribute.

Could my background in software help with GIS?

Data?

Mapping?

Planning?

Aviation?

Fire behavior?

Program management?

Some problem nobody has thought to build a tool for yet?

I do not know.

But I keep asking the question.

Why I Am Writing About It

I am still learning.

That is one of the main reasons I want to write about wildland fire.

I do not want this part of the blog to come across like I am pretending to be a twenty-year career wildland firefighter.

I am not.

My experience is through the Oklahoma National Guard, and my path is naturally going to be different from somebody working an entire fire season for the Forest Service, BIA, BLM, a state forestry agency, or a contract crew.

That is exactly the perspective I want to write from.

What was FFT2 training actually like?

What changed when I became an FFT1?

What did S-290 change about the way I look at fire?

What can prescribed fire teach you?

What is a Red Card?

What is a task book?

What is a Firing Boss?

How do aircraft fit into wildfire response?

What gear has actually worked for me?

What sounded like a good idea and turned out to be dead weight?

And how does somebody even get involved in wildland fire in the first place?

Some posts will be educational.

Some will be gear reviews.

Some will be lessons learned.

Some will probably just be stories from training or incidents.

And occasionally I may write something and later find out somebody with considerably more experience has a better way of looking at it.

That is fine too.

That is part of learning.

Where I Am Now

Right now, I am qualified as an FFT1 and still figuring out where I want to go next.

Firing operations interest me.

Fire behavior interests me.

Leadership interests me.

Aviation interests me.

GIS has my attention.

And maybe more than anything, I keep coming back to the same question:

What skills do I already have that could make a difference here?

I do not know where wildland fire will eventually take me.

For now, I am going to keep training, take assignments when they are available, learn from people who have more experience than I do, and document some of that process here.

Because somehow an Oklahoma National Guardsman and software developer ended up fighting wildland fire.

And I have a feeling this rabbit hole goes pretty deep.