Organizing the chaos

With an inherent love of suffering, elite fire crew a national resource

Smith River Hotshots hike to a slopover, an area where a wildfire has crossed the fireline, to assist another crew. (Photo courtesy of Casey Williams)

Lean and fit, the new Smith River Hotshot crew looks like they could run all day, while laughing.

Like many small specialized units with intensive physical and mental training, the Smith River Hotshots are a cohesive group with their own jokes and an obvious camaraderie.

At a call to gear up from squad leader Aaron Doyle, the crew, recently back from a fire, jumps into motion and dons their gear and nomex in less than ten minutes.

Nomex, a fire retardant yellow material, is what forest firefighter uniforms are made of.

According to members of the 20-person crew, one of the most important unstated requirements for being a hotshot is an inherent love of suffering.

“We spend 50 percent of our time in wilderness,” said Smith River Hotshots superintendent, Glen Tingley. “It’s quite a bit of hiking, and it’s almost never flat. Then you figure in that our packs weigh 45 pounds on the low end and you begin to get an idea.”

What Tingley left out is the actual work. Hotshot crews construct handline along the flanks of the fire.

While fighting a wildfire, Thomas Davis of the Smith River Hotshots removes heavy fuels with a chainsaw before they ignite and cause further fire spreading. (Photo courtesy of Joe Rusgrove)

“Essentially what we do is like digging a shallow and wide ditch,” said squad leader Jacob Wight. “We scrape all the vegetative matter down to soil that won’t burn 1.5 times the expected flame height.”

While in some places constructing handline is easier, according to Wight, creating handline in the Smith River National Forest is very hard.

“It’s like trying to create handline through velcro,” Wight said.

According to Tingley, the crew had its eyes on hotshot certification for the past three years.

“There are not many people who can call themselves a hotshot,” Tingley said. “I am very proud of the crew and their ability to achieve this outstanding accomplishment.”

Hotshot crews are certified by a regional U.S. Forest Service committee, and it isn’t easy to receive the hotshot certification.

On top of extensive classroom work and an hour a day of physical training, hotshot crew members must also be able to run 1.5 miles in under 10 minutes, do 40 situps and 25 pushups in 60 seconds apiece and do four to seven pull-ups, depending on weight.

 A typical physical training exercise is to gear up and hike the steep ridge across Highway 199 from the Gasquet Ranger Station.

Hotshot crews may be sent anywhere in the United States and in the past have helped fight fires in both Canada and Mexico.

Despite having their hotshot certification for only one season, the Smith River Hotshots have already been loaned out to five different fires – the Backbone Fire, Yuba Fire, Summit Fire, Redrock Fire and Sims Fire.

“Even though they are a national resource, these crews have become a high-value community resource and role model for the communities they serve in,” Vandiver said.

While every fire provides it’s own war story, one of the crew’s favorite things to do is “burning at night.”

“One of the ways to fight fire is to do a back burn, where you start a burn back into the fire,” Wight said. “It’s really cool at night.”

Prior to being a hotshot crew, they were a handcrew.

According to crew leaders, what makes hotshot crews so successful beyond the extensive training is the focus on the chain of command.

“A lot of people say that hotshot crews are a very militaristic organization,” Tingley said.

Doyle explained why the organization is so important.

“The whole chain of command is a way of organizing the chaos fire quickly becomes,” Doyle said. “It is necessary for keeping everyone safe.”

The Smith River Hotshot crew has 10 year round and 10 seasonal crew members.

A photo captured by a member of the Hotshots during the summer Backbone Fire in the Trinity Mountains shows an increase in fire intensity that forced the crew to pull back and take a more indirect approach. (Photo courtesy of Arin Doyle)

“We get a number of returning workers,” Tingley said. “We have to have 20 percent or less rookies to maintain our hotshot qualification.”

According to Tingley, the vast majority of the crew isn’t local, but he hopes that more exposure will bring more local applications in the coming years.

Crew member Tyson Large, 25, a chainsaw operator or “sawyer”, is on his third season with the Smith River crew and loves the fact that they received hotshot status.

“It’s a step up,” Large said nonchalantly hoisting his Stihl chainsaw over his shoulder. “It feels fun to finally get hotshot status.”

Large, who has been a sawyer for the whole time he’s worked in Smith River, is spoiled for any other kind of work.

“It’s just so exciting, and really fun in a painful sort of way,” Large said. “I’m just not a desk job guy.”