“Don’t they blow all their cash pretty fast sometimes?” Frank asked, like a lawyer casually setting up a witness on crossexamination.
“Some sure do. They go up to Anchorage and spend it on women or just party their asses off. When time’s up they drag themselves back on the boat, sober up, and go out fishin’ again.” Alaska spoke nostalgically. He missed the feel of his town during the spending frenzies that accompanied the return of fishermen after a good opening.
Frank leveled his blow gently. “Wouldn’t they have a hard time planning for the future if they had an attitude where they just lived for the moment and blew their money on stuff like that? I mean, are these the guys we want to trust with the fish stocks?”
Alaska’s eyes widened -- a red rock cod that had just discovered a hook nestled in the bait. He immediately decided to shove Frank back into his place. “Aw, listen, buddy, you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. You ever fished on a boat?”
Frank didn’t answer, preferring to let the silence develop.
“Government never did us much good, neither,” Randy finally interjected, switching gears in the conversation while it paused. He looked at Frank with a hint of a respectful challenge.
Frank relaxed and resolved to rise to the occasion. Alaska couldn’t intimidate him into silence, though he suddenly felt almost overwhelmed being the center of the conversation, and felt an urge to slink away.
Randy continued, “We all had steady jobs and the Feds just caved in to the fuckin’ tree huggers and closed up the forest for some owl. We had no time to adjust. Hell, our fathers, and even some of their fathers, were loggers.”
Randy’s eyes, as well as those of the rest of his squad, were directed at Frank. Most of the men looked as if they already knew what Frank was going to say, and readied expressions of disgust. Randy, however, seemed to be using his scrutinizing eyes to do a more careful evaluation, as if Frank was a type of plant he’d passed before but was finally taking the time to examine closely.
“But the...” Paul began.
Frank wasted no time in cutting Paul off, “I think you’re right that the Feds did you wrong,” he said to the growling pack of men. “It’s fucked up and I’m sure I’d be pretty pissed.” Frank considered that he had probably not given the human side of the equation its due prior to this discussion. “I think the government has a responsibility to the loggers, just like it has a responsibility to everyone else,” Frank paused, “and that’s why I think it was justified in doing what it did in some ways...”
Many in Squad Two groaned, and Jim began to speak but Randy interjected, “Let him finish, man. He gave me a chance.”
Frank managed to brave the torrent of loathing. He faced the men calmly and spoke his words quickly, sensing that his time for a rebuttal was coming to an end, “I think it was the people as a whole who wanted to save the last old trees. The owl wasn’t really the issue, and I think everybody knows that. People were upset, and I think they had a right to be.”
Jim could hold back no longer and thrust his words into the conversation, “Yeah, but we have to eat! I like forests too, we all hunt and camp there, take our kids there or whatever... but we’ve got to fuckin’ survive!”
“Yeah, it’s true,” Frank said placidly with an air of deference, hoping not to provoke Jim any further. He thought about how he didn’t like to look at this side of the issue. He suddenly saw a way out. “I do think there should be some retraining of workers and job creation programs set up.”
Randy nodded hesitantly.
Jim spoke again, “But fuck, the government hasn’t done shit! There was no slow change to something; it was just, boom! Go home! Mill’s closed, boys... you ain’t cuttin’ no more trees.”
Frank was abruptly cut off by Paul, who had been bristling to speak, poised to ride the tide of Frank’s words. “Yeah, people said all along that too many trees were being cut, but no one listened until it was too late. Ten percent of the original forest is left! What the fuck do you want, man, the last ten?” Paul looked at the loggers as if they were ignorant children. “What... you like forests full of stumps? You can’t keep looting the planet forever. It’s got to end, man.”
“FUCK YOU!” The voice of Roy the chokesetter boomed over the growls of the rest of Squad Two. His temper had gone from a slow simmer to a full boil in seconds. “Bet you haven’t even worked a day in your life motherfucker! Tree-spikin’ asshole!”
“So what if do spike trees?”
“Then you put my friend in the hospital when the tree with the spike you dumbfucks put in it went through the mill! Busted saw blade chewed his arm up!” Roy spat his words vehemently at Paul, who tried to look unaffected. “And it was you treehuggin’ motherfuckers who made my boss go bankrupt and put me out of work ‘cause he’d leased all this equipment and couldn’t get past you dicks chained to the gate without goin’ to jail!”
“So? You shouldn’t have been there in the first place,” Paul said, as if Roy’s words had bounced off him and deserved only to be kicked aside.
Roy jumped out of his seat and Randy quickly stood, blocking the large man’s path. Randy reached out and held his old friend firmly by the shoulders. After effectively halting Roy’s forward movement, Randy spoke to him softly, “Don’t bother with it, man. Let it drop. Nothing’s gonna change if you beat the shit outta this idiot.”
“Hey man, it’s got to end sooner or later, so just deal with it!” Paul, like a cornered animal trying to appear on the attack, had taken one last swipe before physically turning around in retreat.
Roy’s eyes bulged out of his head and his fierce face became deeply flushed.
Randy turned, his back still blocking Roy, and yelled at the back of Paul’s head, “Why don’t you just shut the fuck up!”
Paul turned around again to face Randy, his face expressionless.
“Yeah man, shut up!” Randy continued. “Your world might be all fuckin’ cool but mine isn’t, so don’t ever tell me what the fuck to do!” He paused. “We’ve wasted enough time on you now. Turn the fuck around!”
Randy looked back at Roy who had a calmer look on his face, evidencing that he had been placated. Both men sat back down.
Frank leaned towards Paul and, again surprising himself, asked, “Why did you have to do that shit?”
“Do what?” Paul appeared both defensive and convinced of his innocence.
“You knew what you were doing,” Frank said coldly, easily fighting off his compassion.
Frank then looked at Scott, who was hiding his laughter in his hand. Scott’s eyes shone brightly as he put up his fist and said, “I’m rootin’ for ya, man.” Scott then turned his head toward Paul and laughed aloud. He looked back and saw that a puzzled look had appeared on Frank’s face and burst into heartier laughter.
The bus pulled into a large gravel lot at the new camp. Little else besides meal tents had been set up. Fast Horse instructed the crew to wait on the bus while he “worked them around a bit” at the checkin area.
Meanwhile, in Devil’s Gulch, the young fire had grown. Winds had blown a few firebrands clear of the main body of fire, and some of the heartier of these had been the seeds of spot fires, whose flames now shot upwards to steadily increasing heights. Some of the spot fires had begun to join the main fire as it advanced and claimed more land for itself; others were taking paths of their own, picking up momentum as they moved. In some areas of the Gulch, flames were beginning to exhibit erratic, volatile behavior, shooting through dry brush as if propelled from a flame thrower, and ripping up select trees like a collection of thousands of small burning rockets, leaving the trees plundered of their greenery seconds later.
The fire had finally been spotted by a second scout plane. The Incident Commander, or I.C., responsible for overseeing all the firefighting operations in the forest received the new report. He immediately took notice of
the fire’s inaccessibility and remoteness in comparison to the other fires; he then remembered that the terrain in Devil’s Gulch was formidable. The I.C. wanted to dispatch crews and planes to the Gulch immediately, but all were committed to other fires. For now, this little fifty-acre fire would have to wait as he focused his attention on the 500- and 800-acre fires still burning nearby. He didn’t have time to consider the fact that there hadn’t been a fire in the Gulch for a long time; a fact that spelled caution to those who could read the signs.
Unbeknownst to the I.C., time had nearly run out to easily check the advance of the Gulch fire. Before the I.C. had even finished his late lunch, flames gathered enough momentum to begin leaping out of the Gulch in which they had been confined in violent, furious spasms, hoping to forever escape the Gulch’s confines. In one narrow section, long tips of fire whipped madly at a collection of pine trees perched atop a bordering cliff. There, flammable needles popped loudly as a wide wave of fire rushed over them, managing to sustain itself for a few brief seconds before receding. In another leap, there came a vicious crackling as flames licked anxiously at the branches of a dead ponderosa pine which stood amongst the living. The dead tree quickly welcomed fire to caress the length of its smooth, limbed trunk; and there, on the edge of a vast forest, amidst an aggregation of dry, gangly branches, the fire managed to take hold and begin a new phase of its existence. Under billowing, eddying black smoke, streaked with shooting sparks, the fire jumped from the dead ponderosa and rolled out of the small group of trees to feed unhindered on young and old alike in the heart of the valley.
Chapter 12
The wooded sleeping areas of the fifteen crews assigned to the new fire encircled almost half of a large gravel lot. Small one- and two-person tents had popped up between the trees like giant, brightly colored mushrooms.
The hot shot crews’ camping areas were as close to being orderly and organized as the environment allowed. Each was composed of rows of samecolored dome tents with openings marked by pairs of boots, all pointing in nearly the same direction. In several of these areas, a nylon banner on which was printed the crew name hung between trees. No belongings could be seen strewn about, and some of the few flat areas on the ground had been swept clean of debris. Fast Horse called these firefighters “drugstore cowboys.”
In contrast, a piece of cardboard hastily tacked to a tree bore the Willamette crew’s name, in Fast Horse’s scrawling hand. Fast Horse had urged his firefighters to make their homes as they wished without much regard to appearance. Threat of rain, and several idle hours, had encouraged his firefighters to use cardboard and sheets of plastic, secured with rocks and sticks, in the construction of their domiciles, some complete with covered entryways. Most took some degree of pride in what they had built, and each dwelling had a style and organization that was unique and largely functional. When a wind blew, the constructions rustled and flapped, looking like collections of garbage blown up against trees and deposited in ravines, more closely resembling a shantytown than an encampment.
Frank left the dinner line and perused the information board. Among the sheets of paper posted there, some understandable only to certain categories of personnel, was a topographic map of the forest. The two main fires looked like black amoebas oozing through canyons and valleys and smothering hills, with several small offspring near each parent. To Frank, they appeared messy fires to fight in such mountainous terrain, with many different active fronts to complicate matters further. With the wind the way it was, it seemed to him that it was likely to be a long time before the flames would die down in every area. The thought excited him briefly.
He guessed they might try to encircle the whole mess with one line, instead of trying to encircle each individual fire. The weather would probably determine a lot of it. He was glad that they would be working in the mountains, even if it meant climbing some hills. It had to be better than the flat, hot, barren landscape they had just left.
He noticed a small fire on the map, outlined in red, burning far away from the others. It looked like a small sword stabbing into the side of a long valley. He tried to view it as if he were the I.C. He’d probably order crews to line its sides and even try to get a dozer or two in there if he could; meanwhile, he’d be knocking it down in front from the air and then lining that part when the time was right.
Frank’s thoughts drifted to the night crews, which had just headed out. At this early stage in the campaign, it was likely that they would be working hard till morning, unless the wind made it too dangerous to get anywhere near the fires. These crews were lucky in some ways, in that they didn’t have the heat to contend with. Also, working at night during the previous season had seemed to Frank to engender a feeling of closeness among the members of his crew, enveloped together in darkness every night for a week. He recalled the sight of the beams from the firefighter’s headlamps shining brightly, scattering hundreds of shafts of light across the smoky forest to a concert of work sounds. He couldn’t remember having felt less alone in his life, after having realized that the vague oppressive fears of the night could vanish so completely. He smiled to himself when he thought of how he and his partner would occasionally turn off their headlamps so as to be invisible to their squad boss while they rested.
Frank’s eyes wandered to the national fire report. The portion that referenced the District they were in read: Thirtythree thousand acres burned. No estimate of containment. Difficult terrain hampering firefighting efforts. Type I and Type 2 crews committed. Additional resources ordered. Frank felt the tingle of anticipation and paged through more of the report. A fire in Idaho had grown to 32,000 acres, while a new one of 55,000 acres was burning in eastern Washington. There were a few more one- and two-thousand acre fires in California, and a couple of small fires in Montana. For most of the new fires there was no estimate of containment, but the fire they had been on in central Oregon was declared contained and was estimated to be controlled in two days.
The final overall prognosis was: “Due to high temperatures and low humidity in the Pacific Northwest, as well as a large number of fires not yet contained throughout the west, resources nationwide are being mobilized.” Frank was thrilled. It sounded like it was heating up everywhere to make this a lucrative, exciting summer. He imagined that any day soon, they might have to give crash courses to people off the street. “Three-day wonders,” Fast Horse called them. Frank had heard that some weren’t bad if they came from a region where people were used to working hard, but a crew with little or no experience was not a crew Frank wanted to be on, even if they were usually kept clear of danger.
Frank estimated his present earnings and smiled, because that sum was only going to grow larger once they were on the clock again in the morning. He looked forward to the newspaper clippings that were likely to appear on the board in a day or two, complete with interviews of firefighters. He and his comrades would be painted as courageous men, risking their necks to save the forests for everybody. It always made him feel like laughing. He, like the rest, knew the truth: no one would be doing this work if it weren’t for the money, not even Fast Horse. He thought about how nearly everyone involved wished for fire, like an undertaker might quietly wish for an outbreak of the plague. Only the District Supervisors or District Rangers wanted things to go back to normal in their ordinarily calm forests. He admitted that people worked hard to put the fires out, but knew that even if much of the west was in flames, he was unlikely to hear a firefighter express genuine concern.
Frank left the board and stepped back into his place in the dinner line. As was his custom when alone amongst others with nothing in particular to occupy his busy mind, he eavesdropped on a conversation taking place nearby.
“D’ja hear ‘bout the crew in the Wallowas gettin’ burnt over?” A bearded, weatherbeaten man asked another of similar construction beside him. It seemed probable to Frank that they had not met prior to this conversation.
“No!
Anyone hurt?”
“Couple died,” the man said softly, without emotion, as if he had long ago accepted that one could meet with death on the job and was neither surprised nor incensed at its appearance.
“Fuck, how’d it happen?”
“Back-burn doubled back on ‘em... or somethin’ like that. I guess they lit it and the wind shifted. They got in their shake ‘n bake bags but a couple got burned, probably tried to make a run for it. That’s what I heard, anyway. You never know for sure what the fuck happens, though.”
“Know what you mean there. But I know that country, and it’s pretty fuckin’ tough in some places. I can see it happenin’.”
“Yeah, no shit. I was on that Sand Creek fire there in ‘92.”
“Yeah, I was there too.”
Frank stopped eavesdropping and digested the new information. He knew that someone had made a mistake for the crew to have been burnt over. He judged the crew boss to be ultimately at fault, because it was he who gave the final orders. But it was hard to sure of anything at this point; the men were right. Rumors bounded freely through fire camps, liberally filling in where official information left off. Frank considered Fast Horse’s level of competency, keeping his anxiety at bay. Frank’s unshakable faith in the man and his firefighting abilities reassured him. He entrusted his safety to Fast Horse without reservation, and it felt good to believe in someone unequivocally. He never questioned Fast Horse’s decisions or orders. And not only did it seem safe to put all the responsibility in Fast Horse’s hands, but it made everything seem to function with order and simplicity. Early on, he figured his own job out there was basically to follow orders about where to go, when to eat, what work to do and how to do it. Leaving the thinking about logistics and crew safety to Fast Horse was, for him, the logical next step.
When a Fire Burns Hot Page 16
