Summer Job Has Workers All Fired Up Fighting Blazes Brings Pay, Thrills

An army is camped out on the St. Maries High School football field.

Tools, helmets, goggles and canteens are stacked beside tents. Conversation is sprinkled with phrases like “engine modules,” “initial attacks,” and “the Siege of ‘87.”

Inside a large building, fax and copy machines whir as telephones ring. Officials huddle around maps, drawing lines and dispatching forces.

About 200 firefighters are living at the base camp in St. Maries, population 2,442. Others are at bases near Cataldo, Avery and Clarkia. All told, about 650 firefighters are in North Idaho guarding 5.5 million acres of state and federal land against wildfires, according to Jerry Hagen, fire information officer with the U.S. Forest Service.

In the past week, the crews have snuffed dozens of small blazes and three large ones totalling 260 acres. The abnormally hot, dry weather, Hagen said, has crew leaders on edge.

“A lot of people are saying it’s got the potential for being a 1910 burn again,” he said. “We want the large crews here because we’re anticipating that not all those fires are going to be small.”

Eighty-four years ago, with virtually no rain since March, windfanned flames sped across North Idaho Aug. 20 and 21. Some 3 million acres were blackened, 85 lives were lost and a third of Wallace was destroyed by flames.

Refugees fled by train to Missoula and Spokane. Trapped firefighters took refuge in mine shafts or blackened areas; others, their heads covered with blankets, lay down in streams.

Modern wildfire suppression, with its water bombers, chain saws, bulldozers and communications networks, looks considerably different.

Despite the new technology, however, the tools fire crews are most familiar with have changed little. Teams on foot, armed with shovels, rakes and “pulaski” pickaxes are still the most widespread methods of fighting forest fires. Firefighters carry about 30 pounds of equipment, often adding 40 pounds of water on their backs. Part of the weight is a shiny, tent-like fire shelter in case firefighters are trapped by flames.

“It’s probably the hardest work known,” said Hagen. “It’s hot, it’s dirty, you’re swinging a pulaski.”

So why do it? For a lot of people, Hagen said, it’s the money. Most of the firefighters are seasonal workers earning $6 to $8 per hour. Overtime and hazard pay push that to $10.50 to $14.

“It’s a secure job every summer,” said 19-year-old Scott Coombs, a Sacramento, Calif., college student. “And I don’t have to work during the rest of the year.”

Also, Coombs said, it’s exciting.

“My friends are working at hotels and restaurants. They think I’m camping out in the middle of huge flames,” said Coombs. “I let them think that.”

“I’ve always liked fire. It’s kind of a rush,” said Matt Brown, 18, of Susanville, Calif. The son of a firefighter, Brown wants to make a career out of it.

“I like being outdoors. You get to travel and meet people,” he said.

Resting at a nearby tent was 30-year-old Dennis Carpenter. He and his crew spent most of the night fighting a fire. Carpenter carries a 40-pound kit including a 28-inch chain saw, gasoline and saw tools. It’s his 12th year as a seasonal firefighter. In the off season he welds and repairs boats in California.

“Firefighting’s got a lot of prestige to it,” he said.

A hundred yards away, kitchen foreman Dixie Gerard was looking over the day’s menu. Gerard works for OK’s Cascade Co., a caterer from Monroe, Wash. Working out of special semi-truck trailers and canvas wall tents, Gerard and nine workers feed three meals a day to 200 people.

Firefighters need 8,000 calories per day, according to government contract standards. For Gerard, a typical dinner requires 150 pounds of beef, 70 pounds of green beans, 40 pounds of noodles and 270 ice cream cups. And that’s not counting the salad bar.

“They eat good. They have to,” she said. She said she’s been feeding fire crews for 20 years.

“Really, it’s kind of addictive,” she said. “You see places you normally wouldn’t go to and you meet all kinds of nice people. It’s a family out here.”