The story behind the photo: the smokey bear hug

 

This simple photo has volumes of emotion behind it.

My first fire season had come to a close in late October, 1976.

Because I didn’t yet own a car, I waited this Saturday morning for my parents to come pick me up, to take me home for the winter in Prescott, AZ.

The remainder of our crew, about 3 people, would work a week or two longer. Long enough to participate in the annual Green Valley Parade, held the last Saturday of October. Our District’s entry: a Model 20 Tanker, with Smokey Bear at the wheel to wave at parade visitors.

“Get in the photo,” one of my coworkers said, waving me over to pose in front of our tanker.

I hesitated…the guy in the Smokey Bear costume was someone who’d done everything he could to make my life miserable the entire summer.

However, I reluctantly complied.

For those who understand body language, my crossed arms speak volumes.

Fortunately, that guy never returned.

The story behind the photo: A near miss; slurry

 

My first fire season—my second fire. After a near-disaster on the Kent Fire, where our gear burned up, leaving my crewmate Joe and I without drinking water for hours, my confidence got a boost because now I knew what to expect-lots of hard, hard work, which I discovered I could handle-and that you can never carry too much water. 

We’d been clearing helispots that week. My first experience flying in helicopters, while scary at first, quickly turned into the ultimate thrill. Tom and Eric and I had station duty while the rest of our crew finished up the helispot work when a fire call came in. Because the dispatcher reported the fire along a remote dirt road we often used to access the east side of the Santa Rita Mountains, we hopped into our Model 20 Tanker with the assumption the water truck would come in handy. As we approached the fire, however, we knew we’d be hiking in.

I strapped on my 6 quarts of water and grabbed a Pulaski out of the side tool box. Eric and Tom slung over their shoulders a one-gallon canteen, and grasped a shovel and Pulaski, respectively. We started the challenging hike through the steep, rocky, grass-covered slope, which also hid the pain-inducing shindagger agaves, aptly named for their propensity to stab you where it really hurts.

Finally at the fire’s edge, we began building line. Hard to do in rocky soil, if not almost impossible. After an hour or so, we were excited to have help arrive in the form of slurry, also known as fire retardant.

We watched the first drop, grateful for its support in our fire suppression efforts. A short time later, another plane approached…but unlike the first time, this drop headed straight for us.

Eric ordered us to hit the dirt, and we did, anticipating a life-threatening hit of slurry, if not worse. Fortunately, the main drop missed us, but not by much.

It wasn’t until weeks later I got around to developing the film in my camera, the one I’d brought with me, but left in the tanker. Flipping through the photos, I was puzzled to see images of that fire, that I couldn’t possibly have taken. A few days later, I found a note from a Sierra Vista, AZ firefighter tucked into my camera case.

“Hope you don’t mind, but when our crew arrived, I found your camera, and hope you don’t mind that I took some photos for you.”

 

The story behind the photo: Rescuing the food box

 

 

A "Gremlin Goose" delivers food to our crew

Ever since my Prescott friend, Chuck, talked non-stop about his Alaska visits, wanting me to go with him some day, and then later encouraging me to apply for a firefighting job there, I had hoped someday I would see this magical place. In 1980, I excitedly accepted a position on a tanker/helitak crew in Kenai, Alaska.

What an experience that turned out to be…and not at all in the way I expected. As a seasoned firefighter, I looked forward to a busy fire season, something that in the past Alaska news never seemed to lack in reporting. But that summer, it rained. A lot. Okay, coming from the desert southwest, weekly rain would be a lot. But here, it seemed like it rained nearly every single day. We were optimistic at first, but as the soggy weeks dragged on, morale plummeted. And then, after two months, at last, we got a fire call.

In past fire seasons, a fire call meant driving or flying by chartered airplanes and then bussed or driven to the fire scene. Here, with the fire being in a remote area west of Anchorage (trust me, there’s absolutely nothing in the way of civilization west of Anchorage), we were transported by our station’s contracted helicopter. I’d never flown for more than 15 minutes in a helicopter before, so the over 1-hour trip was quite unusual.

After a week on the line…I won’t get into the surreal experience of building fireline where tundra had the consistency of a wet sponge, or how there were times where the rain was steady enough that we huddled under ponchos to stay dry, only temporarily slowing the fire’s progress, before we went back to work.

That first week, we also subsisted on the standard C-rations (commonly called C-rats), which passed as food only for the very hungry. Fire Management officials promised a food drop “soon.” Rumor had it food boxes contained what constituted gourmet on the fireline, including fresh fruit and vegetables. My mouth salivated at the thought. I was ready for “soon” to be today.

Finally! The word came in that a food drop, via cargo plane, was on the way. My pal Dan and I had camp duty that day, and we heard the plane approach. We rushed to get a better view of the drop zone. There we stood, in great anticipation of REAL food, speculating on what goodies would be in those crates.

The plane came in low, and the cargo hatches opened, releasing two crates. One parachute opened. The other did not. The one with the open parachute landed relatively easy…bouncing a couple of times before resting. The other crate slammed into the ground with such force, it disappeared into the tundra.

What comes next is one of my favorite adventures in my book. If you’ve not read it, I hope you will!