The Not so Glamorous Life of a Wildland Fire Fighter

We hear about the hundreds of Wildland fires that affect the country every year, but who is fighting these blazes. Here are the confessions of a former Wildland Fire Fighter. David tells me that it is not a job you do for glory or money. It won't bring you fame or even fortune. It is a job done from the heart.

"I became a wildland fire fighter because I loved the job. It was a passion for me not a J.O.B. I have always loved nature and was fascinated by fire," David confessed.

Being a Wildland Fire fighter is not an easy task. It takes discipline and determination. You have to be in top shape and go through training and testing. Once you have passed these classes and endurance test you might get your fire taste of life on a fire line. That first year as a Wildland firefighter may just be the most grueling. You get all the crap jobs. You carry the bladder bag and other people's tools. You are lucky if you get close enough to a fire to feel the heat.

David told me," Being a Wildland Fire fighter you spend much of your time eating dirt not breathing smoke. You maybe so far from the fire that you can only tell it's around by the faint smell of smoke in the air."

It take a few fires before you have acclimated yourself to the work but it takes much longer to get use to the life style. Wildland fires are not on a schedule. So if you are like David when he first got into the game he was a DTE, which means he was a free lance for the Government. They called him up when they needed him. David had a regular job at Wal-Mart. David said Wal-Mart was really great to understand that he might be gone on a moments notice. No plans were ever set in stone. He says he was always waiting for that next call. Looking back David remembers getting the calls for a fire.

"When I would get the call most of the time I would have two hours to get my gear and report to meeting location. There was only time for a quick call to loved ones. Then I was off to the next fire. It was exciting at first. On the east coast they would put you up in hotels and feed you at restaurants. This was not a bad life. I always could call home each day to report on the fire. The goal though was to get good enough that they would send you out west."

A West coast fire life was very different. David said the fires out there were so large compared to wildland fires at home. He would fly out west and get matched with other fire fighters from the park service. David would have to take a tent and sleep on the ground. There would be a trailer most of the time converted into a shower room. After climbing the mountain and digging line all day, he would have to go back to camp and wait in line for food, shower and not to mention the phone if there was one. David said he would wait hours in line to call home for five minutes. He said he would be so tired at the end of each day and the next day you got up and did it again.

David said the job changed when you went out west. You were no longer just gone for a few days it was now weeks before you got back home. There was no hotel room or great meals. You ate on the fire line with a MRE and you were given a mess hall style dinner. If you were lucky you might get to call home a few times in those two weeks.

David told me, "I knew once I saw the fires out west that this was a job I wanted full-time."

David recalls going on vacation in the summer of 2000 and getting a call to go to Colorado for a really big fire. He was in Nebraska at the time and all he could think about was how to get to the fire. He was not concerned about the vacation anymore but getting to the next fire. He said in that moment he knew he was hooked.

David never made it to that fire, but when he got home he started applying for fire jobs. He applied for every fire job he could find. He was young only 19 and knew that it would be hard for him to get a full-time fire job. There were very few wildland fire jobs at the time and many people with much more experience than him out there.

David said, "I had a good mentor that helped me get the classes and experience I needed to get that dream job. I applied all over the country for fire jobs. To my surprise I was offered dozens of jobs. In 2001, I became a member of a Hotshot crew and moved to Tennessee. I was now a full-time wildland fire fighter."